Full story
Twin quakes, rising toll
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez defended the country’s emergency response to the twin earthquakes that struck on 24 June, saying during a military ceremony for Venezuela’s independence day, “There will be no social unrest here – what we have here is deep social solidarity.” The Guardian reported that Venezuela’s information ministry said the number of people killed had risen to 3,342 and the number of people injured had passed 16,700, as international rescue teams wrapped up operations to find more survivors. The Guardian also described how collapsed buildings left thousands homeless, especially in the coastal La Guaira area north of the capital, Caracas, and how forensic technician Joel Mirabal estimated that in 60% to 70% of cases a relative or neighbour is available to identify a body. NBC News described La Guaira as a temporary morgue guarding the bodies of thousands of people who died in devastating twin earthquakes more than a week ago, with bodies laid out on the cement of a seaside pier at the port La Guaira.
““There will be no social unrest here – what we have here is deep social solidarity.””
citations[{
Rescuers, families, and methods
As families and foreign rescuers worked in La Guaira, RFI reported that more than 2,000 rescuers from 27 countries took turns, and that rescue operations had progressively shifted toward extracting bodies rather than searching for survivors. RFI quoted UN coordinator Sebastian Mocarquer saying, “The survival of people trapped under the rubble depends on several factors,” while describing how a spray-painted “C” on a façade could suggest survivors. BBC Mundo described relatives hammering collapsed structures with sledgehammers and calling for silence to detect “the slightest sign of life beneath the rubble,” as citizens complained about slow government response. BBC Mundo also recounted that a woman and her 18-day-old baby, Dayana Patiño and her 18-day-old baby, were found after twelve hours of fruitless searching, with the baby extracted first and handed to his father at 1 a.m. on Friday.
citations[{
Why buildings fell
Havana Times, via BBC Mundo, said scientists were still studying why so many buildings completely collapsed after the 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, describing the event as a doublet seismic rupture involving the Boconó fault and the San Sebastián fault. It quoted Feliciano de Santis, president of the Venezuelan Society of Geologists, saying, “There can be more than 50 reasons why buildings collapse,” and listed factors including seismic-wave impact, La Guaira’s proximity to seismic energy release, soil type, resonance, and construction defects. The article also cited Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), explaining that “The double event had all the characteristics of a disastrous earthquake anywhere in the world,” including high magnitude, long duration, shallow depth, and rupture characteristics that exacerbated the phenomenon. La Razón reported that NASA counted nearly 58,870 damaged buildings in Venezuela and that an analysis by the European Copernicus service accounted for 434 buildings completely collapsed, with 422 located in Caraballeda.
““There can be more than 50 reasons why buildings collapse,””
citations[{
