Argentine soccer star Lucas Trejo’s family killed in Venezuela quakes

The family of Argentine defender Lucas Trejo was found dead after a 74-hour search in the rubble of an apartment building that collapsed in Playa Grande, La Guaira, during Venezuela’s twin earthquakes. Trejo, 38, was in Caracas with his club when the quakes hit, and Marítimo La Guaira identified his wife, Yanina Maranella, and their children, Aarón and Ainhoa, among the dead.

The earthquakes struck on June 24, 2026, as a severe doublet of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, with the second shock arriving seconds after the first. The collapse in Playa Grande was part of a broader disaster across northern Venezuela, bringing down buildings, damaging infrastructure and overwhelming rescue capacity.

Initial counts put the toll at at least 32 dead and 700 injured, with dozens of buildings damaged or destroyed. Later tallies put the death toll above 1,400, while thousands of people were still missing. The disaster became one of Venezuela’s deadliest earthquakes in modern history.

Venezuelans have joined searches for missing relatives on their own, even as foreign teams, including U.S. rescue personnel, arrived to help. The effort has stretched from Caracas and La Guaira to other hard-hit areas, including Yaracuy, as officials race to identify survivors and recover the dead.

Marítimo La Guaira joined the public mourning and asked for respect for his relatives and teammates. Trejo, a Córdoba native who built his career as a center back in Venezuela’s second division, lost his wife and children in the collapse.