Against the grim backdrop of Venezuela’s earthquake disaster, rescuers broke into cheers and hugged one another after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building eight days after the deadly twin tremors.
With the official death toll approaching 2,300 and vast numbers of people still missing, the survival of security guard Hernan Gil after so many days beneath the rubble was hailed as nothing short of miraculous.
Mr Gil was carried out on a stretcher after crews completed a painstaking effort to free him from the ruins of the seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area that was almost completely flattened in the 24 June disaster.
“This is truly a miracle,” Mr Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP before his rescue.
There was jubilation as Hernan Gil emerged alive from the rubble
Rescue crews from seven countries – Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico – had spent the past three days working nonstop to reach him.
The mission was highly delicate, with teams forced to move carefully to avoid triggering further collapses in already weakened nearby buildings.
“It wasn’t easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,” Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team.
Still, despite a handful of remarkable rescues – including a three-year-old boy found Tuesday, six days after the quake – hopes of locating many more survivors have dimmed.
International rescue teams continue combing through the wreckage for survivors
No signs of life
In La Guaira, the city north of Caracas that suffered the worst devastation, most collapsed buildings now bear the letter ‘D’ for ‘deceased’ – a bleak marker showing they were searched and no signs of life were detected.
“Time isn’t wasted in a place where there is no expectation of recovering people alive,” said Javier Rodes, the coordinator of a Spanish rescue team whose sniffer dog Nala searched the debris without finding traces of life.
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Venezuela’s National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said yesterday that the death toll had climbed to 2,295, while more than 11,000 people had been injured.
He said nearly 13,000 people had lost their homes.
Tens of thousands of people are still unaccounted for.
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez yesterday announced seven days of mourning, saying the country’s “soul is torn apart by the human losses”.
Venezuela’s National Assembly President said the death toll had reached 2,295
The two powerful earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, tore through entire neighborhoods in oil-rich Venezuela, a country already weakened by decades of economic crisis that crippled infrastructure and health services.
The disaster has struck during a fragile political transition, six months after the United States ousted leader Nicolas Maduro.
Fight for survival
Attention is now turning to the struggle facing those who survived. Many have no homes to return to, and supplies of food and water are running thin.
Reports of theft have also spread widely.Yesterday, four police officers were arrested after residents caught them stealing valuables from the rubble.
Lines for aid are growing longer each day, with many survivors depending on volunteers and donations from other citizens to get by.
“Here, we were receiving nothing until last night when they started bringing water,” said 56-year-old Fatima Berroteran, who has been sleeping with her family in a parking lot since their home in a high-rise complex in La Guaira collapsed.
The United Nations estimates 50,000 people are missing in Venezuela
The World Food Programme on Tuesday appealed for $50 million to provide food for about 500,000 people in Venezuela for three months.
Risk of disease
Concern over disease was also mounting.
World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Venezuela’s health services were under “extreme pressure.”
“There’s an increased risk now of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases” such as measles and diphtheria, due to low pre-earthquake vaccination coverage, he said.
According to a preliminary assessment of satellite data published by NASA, the quakes likely damaged or destroyed 58,870 buildings.
