The double earthquake that devastated northern Venezuela has killed nearly 3,000 people, according to official figures released Saturday, as international rescue teams gradually stop searching for survivors in the rubble.
• Also read: Double earthquake in Venezuela: no more signs of life, search operation suspended
• Also read: VIDEO | Stuck in rubble for eight days: Venezuelan double earthquake survivor found
In La Guaira, the epicenter of the disaster forty kilometers from the capital Caracas, many entire buildings were flattened like mille-feuille on June 24. Many victims are still on the streets or sheltering precariously in parks, with no prospects.
“We continue to work, to find bodies, we continue,” assures AFP Francisco Sasquia, a 38-year-old volunteer lifeguard and translator, in front of Ocean Beach, a building in the Playa Grande district. Machines finished throwing already collapsed structures to the ground and cleared the slabs of buildings.
“We still think that we will find people alive, we are not losing hope,” he adds as Vietnamese and Mexican brigades who came to participate in the efforts leave the scene.
At least 2,954 people were killed and 16,592 injured in the double earthquake, one of the most powerful and devastating in Latin America, according to a still provisional assessment given by the Venezuelan Ministry of Communications.
More than 16,000 people are homeless and 856 buildings are damaged, the Ministry of Communications also indicated.
The two earthquakes occurred 39 seconds apart and mainly affected northern Venezuela, plunging the country into mourning and despair at not finding loved ones, alive or dead.
In the streets of La Guaira, foreign rescuers involved in the search are becoming increasingly rare.
Brigades from the United States, Chile and other countries begin to prepare for departure. Among them, rescuers from the Los Angeles County firefighters as well as teams from Florida and Virginia, their members told AFP. The window for finding survivors in this type of disaster closes after 72 hours, or three days.
On Thursday, rescuers nevertheless saved a man buried for eight days under the ruins, a glimmer of joy in the midst of the tragedy. Caracas was also affected: buildings collapsed, but the damage was far less than in La Guaira.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the 7.5 earthquake is the strongest since 1900 to hit Venezuela, a country of nearly 30 million people with an economy in crisis.
“Solidarity”
On Saturday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez decorated rescuers from the United Kingdom, Qatar, France, India, Barbados, Brazil and Argentina. She even presented medals to tracking dogs.
“It is universal solidarity that must inspire the people of the world,” she declared during the ceremony.
The leader, at the head of Venezuela since the capture of former President Nicolas Maduro by the United States in January, is criticized for the lack of rescue workers and equipment until the arrival of international brigades.
In Caraballeda, Guaira state, hundreds of modest families lived in 12-story residential complexes known as OPP (Works of Popular Power) 26 and 27.
They are nothing more than mountains of rubble in the middle of which exhausted volunteers are struggling to recover the bodies of decimated families.
“It’s a horror film, we escaped the war, but not nature,” says Celida Sequera, a 43-year-old volunteer, her face and clothes covered in earth. This housewife has been accompanying a friend who lost everything for eight days. His wife and three children aged 6, 10 and 12 were lying on a bed when a wall fell on them, she said. The family has finally been located.
The government has not provided figures on the missing but the UN estimates there could be up to 50,000.
