Venezuela's earthquake death toll climbs to 1,943 as rescue hopes dwindle; over 60,000 missing
Six days after twin earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, the official death toll has reached 1,943 and the number of people pulled alive from rubble each day has dropped to single digits, with more than 60,000 still unaccounted for.
Death toll nears 2,000
On 30 June, Venezuelan authorities announced that 1,943 people have died and 10,571 more were injured by the twin earthquakes that hit the country on 24 June. The figures were delivered by parliament president Jorge Rodríguez, who said 6,461 people have been rescued since the emergency began. Before that, between 13,400 and 13,500 escaped on their own or with help from relatives in the La Guaira area.
Glimmers of survival
Even six days after the disaster, rescue workers pulled a 3-year-old boy, Klieber Morán, alive from the rubble of the Los Corales Garden 1 building in La Guaira. The Jordanian rescue team that freed him had been working through the debris. A day earlier, an Ecuadorian squad rescued 12-year-old Carlos from a collapsed structure in the Macuto sector of La Guaira after five days trapped. These successes kept hope alive, but such dramatic saves are increasingly rare.
Rescues slow to a trickle
The number of daily rescues in the hardest-hit state, La Guaira, has collapsed. On the first day 2,407 people were pulled out, but by day four that fell to 345, then just four on day five and a single person on the sixth day, according to official data.
- Day 1
- 2407 people
- Day 4
- 345 people
- Day 5
- 4 people
- Day 6
- 1 people
Ecuadorian and US rescue teams halted operations early on Tuesday in Macuto after more than 40 hours without hearing any sign from a mother and her three children buried inside a nine-story building.
In the end, we believe the days have already passed and that what we will find now is death.
A state in disarray
Le Figaro reported that families are ignoring safety protocols to dig through debris in areas deemed too dangerous by official rescuers, as international aid struggles against the chaos of a failing state. The UN resident coordinator in Venezuela, Gianluca Rampolla, said from Caracas that the death toll will rise:
There is no doubt we are facing a figure higher than what has already been reported. I can offer an estimate: we are procuring 10,000 body bags.
Despite the deployment of more than 3,300 rescue workers from 27 countries, coordinated by the UN, the number of missing people varies widely. The political opposition’s website reports 43,000 missing, the UN estimates up to 50,000, and Portuguese broadcaster RTP puts the figure above 60,000. NASA satellite analysis indicates that roughly 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, while in La Guaira alone 855 buildings suffered damage, 189 of which collapsed completely.
Portuguese victims
Among the dead are 60 people of Portuguese nationality or descent, including 10 children, according to the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with 86 to 87 still missing.
