UNIPA News(Caracas) 30 June-Rescue teams continued searching for survivors across Venezuela on Sunday following two powerful earthquakes that struck the country on Wednesday, as the official death toll approached 1,500 and tens of thousands of people remained unaccounted for.
Authorities said the death toll had risen to 1,450, with 3,150 people injured, 12,721 displaced and 774 buildings collapsed, according to Jorge Rodriguez, president of the National Assembly. Search-and-rescue operations remained focused on the worst-hit coastal state of La Guaira, about 40 kilometres north of Caracas.
Interim President Delcy Rodriguez said rescue efforts would continue after emergency crews recovered additional survivors on Sunday.
“Rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. Today we have recovered people alive and, therefore, operations are not being suspended. We always maintain hope,” she said.
Rodriguez also announced the formation of a presidential commission to assess the structural safety of damaged buildings. She said schools would remain closed for another week, while electricity service in La Guaira had been restored to approximately 75 percent.
More than 2,600 international rescue personnel have joined local emergency teams in the search for survivors. Rescue operations have been complicated by widespread building collapses, repeated aftershocks and limited access to some affected areas.
Government officials said at least 33 people had been rescued alive by Saturday evening, including several children. On Sunday, rescuers pulled a father and his son alive from the rubble of a collapsed building.
Although the government has reported hundreds of people missing or trapped, an online registry promoted by Venezuela’s political opposition listed just under 50,000 people as unaccounted for on Sunday, down from approximately 55,000 a day earlier.
Swiss rescue team leader Sebastian Eugster said the first 72 hours after an earthquake are considered the most critical period for locating survivors.
“There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive,” he said.
He added that his 80-member team had detected several trapped survivors using search dogs but was unable to reach them in time.
Several successful rescues were reported over the weekend. US rescue teams saved an infant from the rubble on Saturday, while Colombian rescuers pulled an 11-year-old boy from beneath debris after locating him with a scanner. Mexican rescue workers also rescued another 11-year-old boy from a collapsed building in the town of Caraballeda.
The government has tightened road access to La Guaira, saying unrestricted traffic had hindered the movement of emergency vehicles delivering aid and rescue equipment.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s largest refinery, the 645,000-barrel-per-day Amuay facility, suspended operations on Sunday following a major power outage in western Falcon state, according to workers at the site.
