Desperate search for survivors after deadly earthquakes hit Venezuela – The Latest
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What are the immediate impacts of the earthquakes in Venezuela?
This is The Guardian.
Rescue workers and volunteers have spent the night picking through the rubble with their hands, trying to find survivors, pulling some people out of the rubble of these blocks of flats. Some people say that Venezuela has effectively been turned into a U.S. protectorate in the months since Maduro's capture. The Department of War is going to have to play a big logistical role here. Venezuela, of course, is reeling still from a decade-plus massive economic crisis. The government is really not well equipped to respond to this kind of disaster.
From The Guardian's Today In Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hough.
How are rescue efforts being conducted in the aftermath?
There have been two massive earthquakes that hit Venezuela last night local time near the capital city of Caracas, causing huge damage to buildings which have collapsed and sadly massive loss to life. Tom Phillips, as our Latin America correspondent, you've been speaking to people on the ground. Give us a sense of the scale of the damage.
I mean, really, really disturbing scenes that we're seeing and hearing about from reporters on the ground.
What is the current death toll and injury count from the earthquakes?
One of our reporters spent the night in Altamira and Los Padres Grandes, which are some Very upmarket areas of Caracas, homes and hotels, foreign embassies. I was staying there just a few weeks ago when I was in Venezuela and at least three buildings have come crashing down. Rescue workers and volunteers have spent the night picking through the rubble with their hands, trying to find survivors, pulling some people out of the rubble of these blocks of flats. And many, many thousands of people have spent the night out on the streets sleeping on pieces of cardboard or mattresses or in tents because they're too scared to go back into these fractured buildings after two such massive earthquakes.
Were there any warnings issued before the earthquakes struck?
So the Venezuelan government has declared a state of emergency. We're speaking at about one o'clock UK time. So obviously, any death toll that we're looking at now is sadly likely to rise. But there have been warnings that we could be looking at a death toll of tens of thousands, possibly even 100,000.
Yeah, I think at the moment people are just trying to get a sense of what is going on on the ground. I've seen that Donald Trump has been talking about a devastating number of deaths.
Has Venezuela experienced similar earthquakes in the past?
It really is not clear. The official death toll, as things stand, is 164 with nearly a thousand people injured. I suspect that will rise considerably. But at the moment, we just don't know. I mean, just to give you a sense on a very... personal level i've been speaking to one of our reporters this morning who is heading to the northern one of the one of the northern cities that is worst affected um and she told me that she's going there because her aunt has disappeared so there are lots of people who are missing at the moment and and social media is absolutely lighting up with pictures of of people young and old who have not been seen since about 6 p.m yesterday when that earthquake just tore through this coastal region and brought many many big buildings crashing down
Yes, we'll come on to the rescue efforts. But were there warnings issued? Has Venezuela experienced earthquakes of this magnitude before that would have, you know, sent alerts to people to say that this was coming?
No, we don't believe there was any warning that this was coming, as you might expect. You know, for example, in Mexico City, where you often get a few seconds or perhaps a minute warning of such a major earthquake is about to happen. People were taken surprise. A lot of people, I think, were tuning into the World Cup football match between Brazil and Scotland. I've seen pictures of images on the Internet of people. watching that game and suddenly their front room shaking all over the place and them sprinting for cover. People at the airport who are obviously waiting to get on board planes and then they're in the airside in the terminal and dust starts crashing down from the ceiling and the whole structure is shaking and people are racing for cover.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the immediate impacts of the earthquakes in Venezuela?
0:00–0:45
2
How are rescue efforts being conducted in the aftermath?
0:45–1:12
3
What is the current death toll and injury count from the earthquakes?
1:12–1:49
4
Were there any warnings issued before the earthquakes struck?
1:49–2:14
5
Has Venezuela experienced similar earthquakes in the past?
2:14–3:54
6
What challenges are rescue teams facing in accessing affected areas?
3:54–4:29
7
How is the Venezuelan government responding to the disaster?
4:29–4:48
8
What are the long-term implications of this disaster for Venezuela?
4:48–11:01