Venezuela Earthquake Death Toll Surges
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It's Monday, June 29th and survivors are still being pulled out of the rubble. We start here. The death toll in Venezuela skyrockets as more earthquake victims are found. But some miracles are being unearthed here as well. The ceasefire hangs on the balance in the Strait of Hormuz. Each side appears to be testing each other's red lines. Now attacks over the weekend leave a region on the brink. And fire season is technically barely a month old, but firefighters have already died in Utah.
One second we're living our dream up there on the mountain, and the next second we're living out of the back of our truck.
The blaze is now roaring up and down the West. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Brad Milkey.
When we learned that a pair of powerful quakes had hit Venezuela, it was immediately obvious there would be deaths. I don't think it was clear though that it would be quite like this. Over the weekend, pictures began emerging of just how widespread this damage was. The epicenter was near La Guayra, Venezuela, right along the coastline. Well, in a single-mile stretch on La Guayra, 22 high-rise buildings collapsed. The capital, Caracas, is just 15 miles inland, many more people there, and all of this translates to bodies.
How did Venezuela's back-to-back earthquakes cause such widespread building collapses?
As of Friday morning, we knew of close to 200 fatalities. This morning, the death toll stands at 1,400, and it's still rising. ABC's foreign correspondent Marcus Moore joins us now. Marcus, can you just help us understand how devastating these quakes have been across Venezuela?
Well, Brad, I mean, it's truly a catastrophic event that has unfolded in Venezuela. These two back-to-back earthquakes hitting on Wednesday evening, the first one 7.2, and then less than a minute later, the second more powerful quake recorded at a 7.5 magnitude. I mean, these were major earthquakes that, as you just noted, really shook much of Venezuela and left widespread destruction across parts of the country. Several major urban areas have been impacted by this, and we know that potentially some 60,000 buildings have either been damaged or destroyed because of these earthquakes. That's according to satellite data that was collected by researchers at Oregon State University and it does give you a sense of the enormity of all of this.
We have these multi-story buildings, many of them homes, that have pancaked. And all of that material has buried scores of people. And at this point, we don't know exactly how many people may be underneath the rubble. There was a time over the weekend that officials had said that they were looking for at least 200 people. But what's significant about the numbers that you noted already is that UN officials said that there are some 55,000 people who are unaccounted for.
Because the precarious situation in Venezuela, people are rescuing the people basically with their nails.
We still at this point, so many days later, don't have a full grasp of just how bad this is.
You mentioned the idea of people perhaps stranded. I know the U.S. sent in not just first aid supplies, but like resources for specifically search and rescue. Have those had an effect?
Yeah, they have had an effect already. We've been reporting on how there are two U.S. teams that specialize in urban search and rescue. They've brought obviously their high tech equipment. We saw some rescues over the weekend that the U.S. teams had helped with. Of course the Venezuelans have been leading a lot of this, but with the support of U.S. teams and also teams from other countries. And there was a rescue where they were able to save a man and his son.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:57
2
How did Venezuela's back-to-back earthquakes cause such widespread building collapses?
1:57–9:33
3
How many people are missing and how fast has the Venezuela death toll risen?
9:33–17:32
4
What search-and-rescue help has arrived and how effective have U.S. teams been in Venezuela?
17:32–22:23