The death toll from the deadly twin earthquakes in Venezuela has risen to 2,595, and thousands still remain missing, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday (Jul 2). On June 24, magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes struck within a minute of each other, resulting in widespread destruction and flattening neighbourhoods. Rescuers continue operations as hopes of finding any survivors fade.
In a press conference, Rodriguez said that there were no plans for mass graves for those killed in the disaster. She also defended her government’s response to dispatch military and civilian officials.
“In the first 24 hours, it reached 4,000 personnel, and within 48 hours there were 11,000 officials,” she told reporters.
Man rescued after eight days
In a miraculous incident, a 43-year-old man was pulled out alive from the debris of a collapsed building after being trapped for eight days. Hernan Gil was carefully lifted out on a stretcher after emergency responders spent hours navigating the wreckage of the collapsed seven-storey building where he had been working as a security guard in Catia La Mar, one of the coastal communities worst affected by the June 24 disaster.
“This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP as rescuers worked to free him.
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Thousands missing
The government did not provide an exact number of those missing; however, UN estimates indicate as many as 50,000 are still unaccounted for. According to data from NASA, almost 60,000 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed. Officials said that about 13,000 people have been left homeless, with many of them sleeping in tents on the streets, parks, and vacant lots.
Most of the collapsed buildings in the hardest-hit city of La Guaira, just north of Caracas, have been marked with ‘D’ for ‘deceased’ to signal it had been searched and no signs of life were found. Rescuers, volunteers, and relatives have now been largely focusing on retrieving the dead from the rubble.
