Thirty-three people have been rescued so far this weekend after Venezuela’s devastating twin earthquakes, the country’s interim president said, including several children, while tens of thousands remained unaccounted for with time for finding additional survivors running short.
The death toll from Wednesday’s twin earthquakes rose above 1,400 as of Saturday as foreign rescue teams poured into coastal La Guaira, the hardest-hit state.
Families and volunteers spent days pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble before the arrival of the more than 1,600 foreign rescue workers, often complaining of scant heavy equipment and a limited official presence, as hundreds of aftershocks deepened damage and kept residents on edge.
The government – headed by interim President Delcy Rodriguez since her predecessor was removed by the US in a January raid – had thanked civilian volunteers ferrying aid to La Guaira, but then heavily tightened access to the road, saying traffic was preventing efficient movement of emergency vehicles and that only accredited people could use the roadway.
Although the government has given a figure of hundreds missing or trapped, just under 50,000 people were listed as unaccounted for on a website promoted by the country’s political opposition yesterday.
The figure is a slight decline from Saturday, when 55,000 people were marked as missing.
The 80-strong team had found multiple people alive in the rubble thanks to alerts from their eight search dogs, but had not been able to pull them out in time to save them, he added.
Saturday evening marked 72 hours since the quakes.
The Swiss team will jointly define with other teams and local authorities when rescue operations will end, Eugster said, but will remain on the ground to help with other aid work.
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