Venezuelan Girl Fabiana Blanco Survived 32 Hours Under Caraballeda Quake Rubble

A 12-year-old girl, Fabiana Blanco, survived 32 hours trapped under earthquake debris in Caraballeda, Venezuela, after back-to-back quakes struck the country on June 24.

“In 2026, upheaval has been a constant in the lives of Venezuelans”

ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

People says the girl stayed conscious by eating ketchup and cheese while rescuers struggled to reach her in the collapsed building, and it identifies Viktor as the volunteer who ultimately located her.

ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The BBC reports that in La Guaira, in northern Venezuela, Fabiana was pulled out from under the rubble on Friday after more than thirty hours, and it says she suffered a fracture in her left foot and a few scrapes and bruises.

CitiNewsroom.com adds that Fabiana was rescued in the early hours of Friday, July 3, after a 7.5-magnitude earthquake on June 24 caused her 10-storey apartment building in Caraballeda, La Guaira state, to collapse.

In the account, Fabiana described the moment she realized she might not be rescued, saying, "I saw things shaking, falling, breaking, and then the walls cracked."

Fabiana told the BBC that she believed she would die, recalling, "I thought, 'I’m going to die. I won’t survive this. No-one is going to rescue me.'"

Karina Blanco, Fabiana’s mother, described rushing to her first-floor apartment in Caraballeda after the tremors began, and she told the BBC, "I was running from one end of the complex to the other screaming, 'She’s dead. My daughter is dead'."

BBC

CitiNewsroom.com reports that Fabiana recorded a video on her phone because there was no mobile network available, and it quotes her saying, "There is no light. There is no-one to rescue us. I am alone."

Caracol Radio says Fabiana explained that the smile captured in a photograph was not happiness but "That smile wasn’t for happiness, but for hope and faith," as she faced the hours trapped under the rubble.

The BBC adds that as of Sunday, 3,342 people were confirmed to have died in the quakes, with tens of thousands still missing, framing Fabiana’s rescue as one of the survival stories emerging from the devastation.

The BBC reports that as of Sunday, 3,342 people were confirmed to have died in the quakes, with tens of thousands still missing, while ABC News & Headlines says the death toll from the magnitude-7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes is nearing 3,000 and tens of thousands remain unaccounted-for.

“In an interview with 6AM W on Caracol Radio, Fabiana Blanco, a 12-year-old girl, became one of the most moving stories after the devastating earthquake that struck the state of La Guaira in Venezuela”

Caracol Radio

CitiNewsroom.com says Fabiana emerged with a fractured left foot, bruises and minor cuts, and it adds that Karina said only three of the nearly 50 residents who lived in their apartment building were rescued alive.

L'Indépendant reports that the UN ordered 10,000 mortuary bags and estimated 50,000 missing, while it also cites an official toll of 1,719 deaths and 5,034 injuries with about 16,000 people left homeless.

La Croix says specialists estimate that the chances of finding survivors are extremely slim at this stage of rescue operations, even as footage of rescues continues to circulate as a symbol of hope.

In the aftermath described across the accounts, the stakes remain tied to the scale of the disaster and the uncertainty of who is still alive, with Fabiana’s rescue occurring amid a toll that sources place in the thousands and a missing-person count described as tens of thousands.