Residents on Tuesday search through the rubble of a building that collapsed in the June 24 earthquakes in La Guaira, Venezuela.
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Ariana Cubillos/AP
It’s been a week since Venezuela’s worst earthquake disaster in over a century. Thousands of people are feared dead, with the official death toll continuing to rise as hope fades of finding survivors in the rubble.
The South American country now faces a humanitarian catastrophe — on top of the deep crises it was already dealing with before the quakes.
Here’s a look at some of the major developments since the evening when tragedy struck.
A soaring toll from Venezuela’s double quakes
Venezuela’s rare double earthquakes happened within seconds of each other on June 24 at 6:04 p.m., measuring a magnitude 7.2 and 7.5. Their epicenters were in Yaracuy state west of the capital of Caracas, and they were felt across Venezuela and even parts of neighboring countries. Venezuelan authorities say the hardest-hit area was La Guaira state.
As of Tuesday, the number of people killed by the earthquakes had risen to 1,943 people, and more than 10,000 injured, according to Jorge Rodríguez, Venezuela’s National Assembly president. But tens of thousands of people are still unaccounted for.
The death toll “will unavoidably and sadly keep on growing as the search-and-rescue operation continues, and as we are able to detail further assessment of the impacts of the quakes,” Gianluca Rampolla, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Venezuela, said in a briefing on Monday.
A rescue dog from the Argentine search and rescue team searches for bodies in the rubble of a collapsed building in Caraballeda, La Guaira state, Venezuela, on June 28, following twin earthquakes on June 24. Thousands of rescuers, relatives and volunteers dig day and night through mounds of concrete to find people.
Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images
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Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images
Rampolla said the U.N. agreed with Venezuela’s government to procure 10,000 body bags, adding, “we truly hope that actually the number is going to be smaller than that.”
In addition to casualties, the sheer number of people left homeless could be staggering. A NASA analysis of satellite data estimated 58,870 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed by the earthquakes.
Up to 6.8 million people could be affected by the disaster, requiring shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and other relief items, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration.
Residents take rescue efforts into their own hands
Public anger has grown at the response from Venezuela’s U.S.-backed government, which critics say has been slow and inadequate. Many people in the disaster zones have had to fend for themselves to recover the dead. Residents are digging with their own hands to search for loved ones in the rubble.
In one of the worst-hit parts of the country, Los Corales, in the coastal state of La Guaira, neighborhood volunteers have been pulling corpses out of collapsed buildings, as John Otis reported for NPR. Lacking body bags, they’ve resorted to using garbage bags and plastic sheets.
One of the residents, Rosalia Bustamante, told NPR government delays in getting rescue equipment to devastated areas have cost lives. She lost several friends who were inside a 12-story building that collapsed during the quakes.
“There were people in the ruins responding when we called out to them,” Bustamante said. “But now, they are dead.”
A U.S. Marines helicopter flies by a quake-hit area in Caraballeda, La Guaira state, Venezuela, Tuesday.
Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images
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Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty Images
Police and army troops have been slow to arrive. And when they get there, they’ve set up roadblocks and demanded government permits from doctors and rescue workers trying to access, residents say.
Construction worker Julio Meléndez tried to bring a jackhammer into a disaster zone to help break up debris and look for survivors. He told NPR the process took two days because police wanted to see his permit as well as the sales receipt for the jackhammer.
“The only thing the authorities do is get in the way,” Meléndez said.
As the critical 72-hour window for finding survivors passed, there have continued to be some miraculous rescues. Six days after the quakes hit, a 3-year-old boy was pulled alive from the rubble in La Guaira. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez wrote on the Telegram messaging app that the rescue of the child, named Klieber Morán, was “a source of hope for our people.”
“The heroism of the people and the solidarity is outstanding, and this somehow mitigates, a little bit obviously, the pain and the needs of the people affected on the ground,” the U.N.’s Rampolla said.
Stories are also emerging of the people who were lost. They include Venezuelans deported by the United States hours before the quakes, who died when the hotel they were being processed in collapsed, as NPR’s Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reported. There were 146 deportees on the flight from the U.S. but it is unclear if any survived.
Alonso Guanipa Toyo told NPR his brother, 32-year-old Víctor, is among the missing deportees. “The government is not doing anything,” Alonso Guanipa Toyo said. “My family is looking for him in the hospitals, in the shelters, in the morgues.”
The humanitarian crisis deepens
Thousands of people are now living on sidewalks, parks or soccer fields. Residents of a mid-rise building in Caracas told NPR they were afraid to go back into their building after it swayed violently in the quakes, as NPR’s Eyder Peralta reported.
“How are we going to live in a place that’s about to crack open?” Mirna Castillo told NPR from a tent camp in a park she is now sleeping in with her children.
She said the government had offered her no help, shelter or direction. “It’s just one chaos after another,” she said.
The Venezuelan government said it will open large camps to house people who have been left homeless. Acting President Rodríguez said on state television that a presidential commission was assessing the state of housing and infrastructure damaged by the quakes. She also said work would begin to build new homes, “in a very short time.”
People reach out to receive supplies from volunteers on Tuesday, days after double earthquakes struck La Guaira, Venezuela.
Matias Delacroix/AP
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Matias Delacroix/AP
Venezuela’s healthcare system, which was already struggling because of years of underinvestment, is now at breaking point.
Karol Bassim, senior program manager with the International Medical Corps’ emergency response unit, told NPR the majority of people in the hardest-hit areas were now “without food, drinking water, shelter or access to basic healthcare.”
“Hospitals are overwhelmed. Some are operating far beyond capacity. Health workers are definitely exhausted,” Bassim said.
The U.N. is now warning about the spread of infectious diseases. Many hospitals have been damaged and doctors are missing.
Countries around the world send assistance
International governments and relief organizations have offered support for the beleaguered country’s emergency response and recovery.
Washington’s role in Venezuela after seizing its leader, Nicolás Maduro, raised expectations about what the U.S. response might be. Maduro was replaced by his vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. Even as the Trump administration has continued to work with the government led by Rodríguez, she has kept many of Maduro’s officials in office.
U.S. firefighters from Fairfax County, Va., pull a survivor from the rubble of a building that collapsed in the earthquakes in La Guaira, Venezuela, Sunday.
Matias Delacroix/AP
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Matias Delacroix/AP
Following the earthquakes, the U.S. announced what appeared to be one of its strongest responses to a natural disaster since dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, as NPR’s Fatma Tanis reported. It includes sending search and rescue teams and military assets to help with logistics, as well as committing $150 million to charities and U.N. agencies.
Several countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia have also pledged support. The European Union said it was sending more than $5 million in humanitarian aid and sending hundreds of responders from member countries to support Venezuelan teams on the ground. The EU activated its Copernicus satellite imagery service to help rescue teams on the ground.
The United Kingdom sent specialist search and rescue teams, and announced more than $2 million in humanitarian funding.
Brazil, Chile, China, India, Japan, Turkey and other countries also pledged support or sent emergency crews.
Nongovernmental organizations including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Caritas network of Catholic organizations are helping out as well, The Associated Press reported.
The task ahead is enormous.
César Jiménez, from the aid group Project Hope in Venezuela, which is supporting local healthcare systems, told NPR the situation was dire. Healthcare facilities in the affected areas have collapsed.
“We are doing our best as Venezuelans to support our people,” Jiménez said. “This is a unique moment in our history. Nobody saw this coming, and we need a lot of support.”
Fatima Al-Kassab reported from Campinas, Brazil. Eyder Peralta, John Otis, Fernando Narro and María Graterol reported in Venezuela. Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Fatma Tanis and Manuel Rueda also contributed reporting.
This story originally appeared on NPR
