Rescue crews in Venezuela search rubble after deadly earthquakes

Rescue crews in La Guaira shut off heavy equipment and asked for silence, listening for any faint sign of life under the rubble after twin earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck Venezuela on Wednesday evening, June 25.

The port city, Venezuela’s main gateway to Caracas, was the worst-hit area, with dozens of buildings collapsed and neighborhoods such as Catia La Mar, Los Palos Grandes and Los Corales shaken hard enough to send people into the streets. The quakes were felt across at least five northern states along the Caribbean coast, where strong earthquakes are rare, and the response was quickly complicated by aftershocks, widespread power outages and communications failures.

Authorities said at least 235 people had died and thousands more were injured. By June 28, the toll had risen to nearly 1,500 dead as firefighters, soldiers and volunteers kept digging through debris in Caracas and surrounding areas. A father and son were pulled alive from the rubble in La Guaira on June 28, and at least 33 people had been rescued by then.

With emergency resources stretched thin, volunteers arrived carrying their own shovels, hammers and other basic tools. Cesar Jimenez of Project HOPE said some hospitals were still operating despite moderate damage, while others were too structurally compromised to safely treat patients because aftershocks kept coming, and that aid had begun arriving from El Salvador, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States, including canine teams, water, medical supplies and equipment.

Delcy Rodríguez met with the army’s general staff to coordinate emergency operations in La Guaira, where state security forces and heavy machinery worked alongside rescuers searching mountains of concrete and twisted steel. The disaster drew comparisons to 1967, the last quake of comparable scale to hit Caracas, when a magnitude 6.7 earthquake killed more than 200 people.