Venezuela quake survivors treated in makeshift hospital in La Guaira

A makeshift hospital set up on the site of a country club in La Guaira was treating survivors of Venezuela’s twin earthquakes nearly 24 hours after the shaking stopped, as the hardest-hit city kept working through collapsed buildings. In a place once meant for leisure, stretchers and emergency care filled the gap left by damaged clinics and overwhelmed hospitals.

Residents and rescue workers kept pulling people from the rubble with bare hands because heavy equipment was scarce and official help was slow to reach some neighborhoods. One local said, “It’s the community that has managed to get people out alive,” a line that captured the improvisation now driving the response in La Guaira and nearby areas.

The quakes struck on June 24, 2026, at magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, less than a minute apart. The toll was at least 32 dead and 700 injured, then rose to 188 dead and 1,520 injured, then to 920 dead and 3,360 injured. The U.S. Geological Survey had warned in its modeling that fatalities could exceed 10,000.

250 buildings were damaged or destroyed, mainly in La Guaira, and emergency shelters sprang up in streets, parks, highways and stadiums as families fled unstable homes. The lack of functioning phone lines made it harder to confirm who was trapped and where the strongest damage remained.

The Venezuelan armed forces were deploying field hospitals to La Guaira, and a military convoy was seen near the local stadium carrying supplies for the response. Aid was coming from Spain, the United States, Mexico and Qatar, while tractors, cranes and backhoes remained in short supply.