More than 2900 Families Affected in Venezuela Earthquakes with a Death Toll of 188 So Far
Thousands of people are outside buildings in La Guaira this Thursday, where desperation is palpable due to the lack of authorities and rescue teams following Wednesday’s earthquakes in Venezuela, which have left at least 188 dead and 971 injured. Firefighters are overwhelmed and heavy machinery for lifting rubble is also scarce. Mothers, sisters, uncles, husbands weep for their loved ones trapped in the collapsed buildings, while others are still in shock and have no idea what they will do now. They also don’t know where the shelters are. Security patrols are driving through the streets, but they are not giving instructions. On El Ejército Avenue in the city of Catia La Mar, almost all the buildings are affected.
Smoke is rising from some buildings, and a municipal market has been consumed by flames. On Thursday morning, a group of people gathered at a bakery waiting to receive food, after some businesses were looted in the early hours of the morning. “It’s inexplicable (what happened). It’s a matter of seconds, everything freezes,” Ana Echeverría, a 45-year-old shopkeeper, told news media, after seeing her business collapse as a result of the earthquakes. “I was able to evacuate my staff because at that moment I had my phone in my hand and it told me: earthquake Curacao, Caracas, alert. We managed to get out, thank God there were no injuries,” she added. But immediately after the earthquakes happened, people came to loot the food from her business. “People wanted food because they had nothing. That was horrible, horrible,” the woman explained, sitting in a chair in front of her business, next to her teenage daughter. The city has no electricity or phone signal. It is practically isolated because the access roads have also begun to be closed.
Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has confirmed so far 188 deaths and 971 injuries as a result of the two powerful earthquakes that shook the country on Wednesday, where she said 30 aftershocks have been recorded in the last few hours. Rodríguez confirmed that La Guaira, a coastal state in the north of the country and neighboring Caracas, is the state most affected by the earthquakes and indicated that it has been declared a “natural disaster zone due to the number of buildings that collapsed,” the number of which he did not immediately specify.
The Venezuelan Caribbean was shaken this Wednesday by two strong earthquakes just 39 seconds apart, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, respectively. The U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center explained that both tremors formed a “seismic doublet,” a phenomenon in which two large earthquakes occur within seconds of each other in the same area.In a new report released by Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, 188 people were counted dead, 1,500 injured, 157 missing and more than 2,900 families affected as a result of the two powerful earthquakes that shook Venezuela this Wednesday, where he assured that 30 aftershocks have been counted in the last few hours. This is a story in progress so stop in from time to time for updates.
