Caracas, Venezuela. Rescuers worked through the night on Friday to save hundreds of Venezuelans trapped in rubble and search for thousands more missing after two powerful earthquakes struck areas in and around the capital.
The government said 235 dead had been taken to medical centers but did not provide a total casualty estimate from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes that struck about 160 km west of Caracas on Wednesday.
Rescue efforts continue
With foreign rescue teams arriving, firefighters, soldiers and residents searched through shattered buildings, in some cases using bare hands and torches where electricity was unavailable.
In La Guaira, a coastal city outside Caracas, Yamileth Jimenez said her 19-year-old son was trapped in the debris of their seven-story apartment building.
“He’s under the slabs and there’s no machinery to get him out,” she said.
Missing and casualty estimates
A website created to track missing people and shared by opposition leaders listed 49,500 people as unaccounted for, while the U.S. Geological Survey predicted more than 10,000 deaths.
Spain’s foreign ministry confirmed that two Spanish nationals had died and that another 80 were unaccounted for.
Wider impact
Thousands were left homeless in a country already weakened by decades of economic and political turmoil that has impoverished the population, triggered the departure of millions and eroded basic infrastructure and services.
Many people live in fragile hillside settlements known as “barrios”.
“My building is uninhabitable and now I have nothing. It’s just me and my son, and I have no family in the country,” said Suhayl Sarquiz, 50, who said she had lost her job a few months earlier.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Beatriz Rodriguez, 60, whose nephew’s legs were amputated after he was crushed in the quakes. Another nephew was killed.
