The death toll from twin earthquakes in Venezuela rose
Friday to 920, with tens of thousands reported missing as international rescue
teams boosted a desperate and slow-moving search for survivors.
Caracas residents jeered interim leader Delcy Rodriguez
during her visit to a devastated neighborhood, as fury over the perceived lack
of an official response mounted.
United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher told AFP that more
than 50,000 people were missing after two powerful earthquakes struck within a
minute of each other on Wednesday evening, flattening buildings in the north of
the country.
The coastal area of La Guaira, near the capital Caracas, was
the worst hit, with one building after another crumpled by the magnitude 7.2
and 7.5 quakes.
Advertisement
Access to the disaster zone was restricted from 8:00 pm on
Friday (0000 GMT Saturday), Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced in a
televised address.
A rescue team from Chile arrived at one residential complex
in La Guaira made up of four tall buildings housing hundreds of apartments that
had largely been reduced to rubble.
“Unfortunately, the collapse is total, and there is little
chance of finding survivors. Efforts are now focused on recovering the bodies
of the deceased,” team leader Nadiomar Polanco said at the site, which
resembles many others in the city.
Advertisement
Elsewhere, family members, neighbors and volunteers used
their bare hands to try to dig out survivors, bemoaning the lack of heavy
machinery or official help to save those trapped alive.
“I am looking for my little Gael… he was only five months
old,” said an anguished Marjosly Salazar, 40, whose 16-year-old daughter died
in the quake. The baby and Salazar’s cousin are both missing.
“Please, we need support here. We need machinery to start
lifting the columns,” she said. “We haven’t seen any government officials here,
none at all.”
In an upscale Caracas neighborhood, Rodriguez was greeted
with angry chants from a crowd of people whose loved ones were trapped under
the debris.
Advertisement
“The government isn’t doing anything for the people,” they
yelled from behind cordons next to a pulverized building.
– ‘Very complex’ –
AFP saw workers using sledgehammers to break through
detritus, calling for “absolute silence” to detect cries from survivors.
“It’s a very, very complex emergency response,” the UN’s
Fletcher told AFP, warning the death toll could rise significantly.
Advertisement
Aftershocks and destroyed buildings still posed significant
dangers.
Venezuela’s worst earthquake in more than a century has come
after the oil-rich country endured more than a decade of economic collapse.
Advertisement
The crisis has hollowed out hospitals and public services,
driving millions to leave the country.
The country is still in a fragile transition six months
after the United States ousted leader Nicolas Maduro.
Advertisement
– Help arrives –
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search and rescue teams
from at least 17 countries were being mobilized to help find survivors.
Advertisement
Spanish, Salvadoran, Swiss, Colombian, and Mexican rescue
teams were already on the ground.
Rodriguez said Friday she had recieved a call from US
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who “reaffirmed their
commitment to supporting the response efforts by sending rescue workers,
specialist equipment, support for temporary shelters and humanitarian aid for
the affected families.”
The United States said earlier it was sending a disaster
response team of more than 250 personnel, including three special
search-and-rescue units with dogs trained to locate people trapped beneath the
rubble.
A senior US military official landed in Caracas to oversee
Washington’s relief efforts.
“Even before the earthquakes, millions of people across
Venezuela were facing food insecurity, collapsing health services, protection
risks, and limited access to basic services,” the UN and other aid agencies
said in a statement Friday.
“The international community must not allow this emergency
to deepen into a larger human tragedy.”
Earthquakes of similar magnitude claimed more than 200,000
lives in Haiti in January 2010 and 73,000 lives in Kashmir in October 2005.
– Foreigners killed –
Those killed included 28 Portuguese nationals, five
Spaniards, two Brazilians, seven Chinese nationals, one Chilean and one
Italian-Venezuelan.
85 Portuguese nationals and 119 Spaniards were missing or
otherwise unaccounted for, according to their respective governments.
The quakes were the most powerful to hit Venezuela since a
7.7-magnitude tremor struck offshore in 1900.
Venezuela’s northern coast sits on a boundary between the
Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, but had not experienced a major
quake since 1997.
Minutes of silence preceded Friday’s World Cup 2026 matches to honor the victims of the tragedy.
Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everydayAdvertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com