Rescuers Race Against Time in Venezuela After Devastating Earthquakes
Quick Look
- Rescue operations in Venezuela are slowing as the critical 72-hour survival window closes following twin earthquakes.
- While some survivors are still being found, aid agencies warn of escalating hunger, disease, and an overwhelmed healthcare system.
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Why It Matters
Twin earthquakes, magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, struck Venezuela last week, causing widespread devastation. Rescue efforts are ongoing, but the critical survival window has closed.
Rescuers in Venezuela raced to find survivors on Tuesday, nearly a week after twin earthquakes devastated parts of the country.
Following the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes striking just seconds apart last week, according to numbers collated by the Venezuelan government, opposition, UNICEF, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA):
at least 1,943 people were killed
more than 10,500 injured
about 16,000 left homeless
more than 6,400 people rescued
around 43,000 remain missing
about 680,000 children in need of humanitarian assistance, and
59,000 buildings were damaged
What is the situation of the rescue operations?
However, the pace of rescues has slowed sharply as the critical survival window of 72 hours has closed.
Rescuers are hoping to find survivors, but now are also looking for the dead.
On Tuesday, rescue teams from Ecuador and the US halted operations in Macuto, La Guaira, after they stopped receiving responses from a mother and her three children trapped beneath the rubble of a building after more than 40 hours of trying to get them out.
"In the end, we believe the days have already passed and that what we will find now is death," said Major Jorge Montanero, leader of the Ecuadorian team.
Hope still lingers in some cases as a Jordanian rescue team pulled a three-year-old boy alive from the rubble in Caracas on Tuesday, one of the few survivors found in recent days.
What are the aid agencies saying?
Meanwhile, aid agencies warned of worsening hunger, disease and an overwhelmed healthcare system.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $50 million (€43.83 million) to provide emergency food assistance to up to 500,000 people over the next three months.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday of the strain on Venezuela's healthcare system.
WHO said at least three health centers were critically damaged and six others only partially functional.
Christian Lindmeier, the WHO spokesperson, sounded the alarm bells over the spread of measles, malaria, yellow fever and dengue among the thousands of displaced due to lack of sanitary facilities and low inoculation rates.
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
Open Questions
- How many more survivors can be found?
- What is the long-term impact on healthcare?
- What is the extent of long-term displacement?
