At least 1,719 people have died in Venezuela following last Wednesday’s twin earthquakes, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Monday, as the critical 72 hour rescue window passed and operations increasingly shifted from search and rescue to recovery.
The death toll has climbed steadily since two strike slip earthquakes, a magnitude 7.2 foreshock followed 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 mainshock, struck off Venezuela’s northern coast near San Felipe, Yaracuy on June 24. The U.S. Geological Survey said the mainshock was the strongest to hit Venezuela since 1900, and the agency’s PAGER system has estimated a 44 percent chance the final death toll could exceed 10,000.
Rodríguez said the earthquakes have affected at least 22,619 people, including 5,034 who were injured. Of the 855 buildings damaged across the country, 189 collapsed completely, he said. There have been 609 aftershocks since the initial quakes, including one felt widely Monday that caused no significant additional damage.
More than 46,600 people remain reported missing, according to a tracking site set up to help families share information, though it remains unclear how many of those have since been located. La Guaira state, the hardest hit region near the capital, has borne the brunt of the destruction.
“We are beyond the 72-hour critical window, but this is one of the miracles of this country, rescuers are still being able to pull out alive people,” said Gianluca Rampolla del Tindaro, the United Nations resident coordinator in Venezuela, according to ABC News. Rampolla del Tindaro added that the U.N. is procuring 10,000 body bags as recovery efforts continue.
International response has scaled up significantly in recent days. The United Nations said 44 international urban search and rescue teams, made up of more than 2,200 specialists and roughly 140 search dogs, have deployed to Venezuela, with additional rescuers from Israel arriving Monday. More than 300 American search and rescue personnel are now on the ground, and U.S. Southern Command said Marines are assisting “around the clock.” The U.S. has committed more than $300 million to the response, according to the State Department, including funding routed through the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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Despite the diminishing odds of finding survivors, rescues have continued. A man and his son were pulled from rubble Sunday after four days trapped beneath a collapsed building, a joint effort by American, French and Venezuelan teams. A 60 year old woman rescued after 86 hours described feeling “reborn,” and an 11 month old infant was pulled from the wreckage Saturday.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has created a presidential commission, led by engineer Francisco Garcés, to assess which damaged structures remain habitable using a green, yellow and red safety classification system. She said electricity, water and road access have been largely restored in La Guaira.
Frustration with the government’s response has mounted among Venezuelans, many of whom say recovery efforts have moved too slowly given the scale of destruction. The Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights has called for independent verification of casualty figures after officials’ updates showed inconsistencies, including a 24-hour period in which only 20 additional deaths were added to the toll.
The disaster has compounded long standing strain on Venezuela’s healthcare and infrastructure systems. Older residents have drawn comparisons to catastrophic 1999 flooding and mudslides in the same region that killed or disappeared thousands and for which the government never released an official death toll.
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