Caracas, June 26:
At least 164 people have died and 971 were injured after a pair of powerful quakes rocked Venezuela, Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said Thursday, adding that rescue teams are rushing to the hardest-hit areas to free people trapped under rubble.
Wednesday evening’s 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century and could be felt throughout the region. The country’s main airport was damaged and closed, while buildings were evacuated in places as far away as Brazil’s Amazon, about 1,700 kilometres from Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
Television broadcasts Thursday showed rescue workers using power tools to work their way into piles of rubble where buildings once stood. Panicked residents of the capital were sent pouring into the streets, and after the quakes many people walked among the debris searching for the missing among collapsed buildings and toppled electric poles.
Footage on state TV showed three children, covered in dust but alive, pulled from the rubble in La Guaira state, which Rodriguez described as a “disaster zone” and one of the areas hardest hit by the quakes because of the large number of collapsed buildings.
Rodriguez said authorities were shifting rescue teams from other parts of the country to La Guaira, which sits north of Caracas on the coast. She said officials were trying to make the most of the daylight hours to speed up efforts to rescue people believed to remain trapped under the rubble.
“Dozens of buildings have collapsed there … and we are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives,” Rodríguez said.
Video shared online appeared to show dozens of people, some lying on the ground and others on hospital beds, being treated outside a hospital in La Guaira.
While Venezuela sits near multiple fault lines, its position straddling the South American and Caribbean plates makes strong earthquakes much less common than in other parts of Latin America.
Rodriguez appealed to businesses to make heavy construction equipment available for rescue operations, adding that search and rescue teams certified by the United Nations were on their way to Venezuela to assist.