Venezuela earthquakes kill 164, trigger emergency on Caribbean coast

Venezuela’s death toll from twin earthquakes climbed to at least 164 as rescue crews worked through collapsed buildings and damaged neighborhoods along the Caribbean coast. Officials also said 971 people were injured, a sharp rise from the first toll of 32 dead and more than 700 hurt as the scale of the disaster became clearer.

The quakes struck Wednesday evening, June 24, 2026, within seconds of each other near Morón, about 100 miles west of Caracas. The U.S. Geological Survey said the first tremor measured magnitude 7.2, followed less than a minute later by a magnitude 7.5 quake at a shallow depth of about 10 kilometers, a profile that can intensify shaking and damage across a wide area.

Buildings collapsed in Caracas and in La Guaira state, where Delcy Rodríguez declared a state of emergency and called the area a disaster zone. Emergency responders searched through rubble for survivors as reports came in of people trapped beneath debris and severe damage in the capital. Dozens of buildings also went down about 30 kilometers north of Caracas, underscoring how far the destruction spread from the coast to the densely populated central corridor.

Authorities closed Maiquetía Airport and canceled classes in several states after the quakes, which were described as among the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century. The rising casualty count pointed to the difficulty of reaching hard-hit areas quickly and the likelihood that early assessments had captured only a fraction of the damage.

By late Wednesday, the magnitude of the emergency was still changing as rescue teams kept pulling people from unstable structures and officials expanded the count of the dead and injured. The rapid climb from 32 confirmed deaths to 164 showed how quickly disaster numbers can move when communications fail, roads are blocked and search teams are still working their way through the worst-hit blocks.