International rescue teams search Venezuela rubble after twin earthquakes

More than 2,000 rescue workers from 27 countries were still combing collapsed neighborhoods in northern Venezuela after twin earthquakes shook the coast on June 24, as the death toll climbed to at least 1,430. The strongest quakes, measured at magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, ripped through La Guaira, Caracas and nearby states, leaving authorities to track 3,238 injuries, 172 people still trapped and more than 50,000 missing.

The United Nations deployed 44 international urban search-and-rescue teams, bringing 2,245 specialists and 140 search dogs into the hardest-hit areas. In Los Corales, a beachside neighborhood among the worst damaged, 50 members of El Salvador’s rescue team were assessing three 10-story buildings with drones, heat scanners and dogs. Drones mapped unstable piles of concrete and exposed voids that might hold survivors. Dogs pinpointed scent through cracks and dust. Heat scanners and cameras helped confirm movement in places too dangerous for people to enter. Sound-detection devices caught faint knocking or calls when visibility was poor.

Beyond the first 48 to 72 hours after a collapse, the strategy had to account for lower odds, damaged structures and aftershocks, including a weaker magnitude 4.9 tremor on June 26 that rattled Caracas and Maracay again. UK International Search and Rescue deputy national coordinator Lee Ivory: the crews were still working to the same level of detail as on day one.

In some neighborhoods, residents, medical students and volunteers were digging by hand amid shortages of heavy equipment and limited official presence, while people in La Guaira heard cries from buried buildings and recovered bodies themselves. The United Nations Development Programme estimated direct physical damage at about $6.7 billion, roughly 6% of Venezuela’s gross domestic product.