Foreign rescue and relief teams began arriving in Venezuela on Friday, nearly two days after two devastating earthquakes levelled areas of the capital Caracas and its surroundings, forcing residents to dig through rubble with their bare hands to save relatives, friends and neighbours.
The government estimated that hundreds remain trapped and missing, in addition to 929 confirmed deaths and 2,980 injured. A website set up to receive reports on people whose fate remains unknown had logged 50,000 reports by Friday morning.
The two earthquakes struck approximately 160 kilometres west of Caracas on Wednesday evening — a public holiday — measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude. The US Geological Survey projected the death toll could exceed 10,000, which would make the earthquakes among the most powerful in Latin America in the past 100 years.
The government of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power after the United States arrested her predecessor in a raid in January, pledged to deploy aid on a wide scale.
Nevertheless, the pace of assistance on Thursday was uneven. Authorities — including firefighters, police, civil defence and the army — were present on the streets in some areas but absent or barely visible in others.
The coastal city of La Guaira, adjacent to Caracas, was among the hardest-hit areas, with at least 100 buildings collapsing, including high-rise residential towers. Bereaved residents, many of whom were digging through the rubble with their hands or whatever tools they could find, criticised the absence of government assistance and proper equipment — even as state television broadcast footage of Rodríguez visiting the area in the afternoon and pledging to provide aid.
Yamileth Jiménez, speaking about her 19-year-old son trapped under the rubble of their seven-storey residential building in La Guaira, said: