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🇻🇪 Venezuela /Disasters & Emergencies

UN agency estimates $37 billion in earthquake damage in Venezuela

From El Nacional · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

Analysis Named sources Outcome reported
  • Earthquakes in Venezuela caused an estimated $37 billion in direct physical damage, according to a UN report.
  • This figure significantly exceeds the initial $6.7 billion estimate by another UN agency.
  • The report details damage to buildings and infrastructure, excluding indirect economic losses and recovery costs.

Twin earthquakes that struck north-central Venezuela on June 24 have caused an estimated $37 billion in direct physical damage, according to a scientific report from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

The results indicate that the damages in buildings (residential, commercial, educational, health, institutional, and industrial) are estimated at around 3% of the total exposed stock (equivalent to 24 billion US dollars).

— UNDRR ReportDetailing the estimated cost of damage to buildings.

This new estimate is substantially higher than the $6.7 billion initially calculated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), another UN agency. The UNDRR report provides a "first quantitative estimation of direct physical damages caused by both earthquakes on buildings and infrastructure." It attributes approximately $24 billion to damage in buildings, including residential, commercial, educational, health, institutional, and industrial structures, representing about 3% of the total exposed assets in the most intensely affected areas.

Damage to infrastructure, encompassing water and sanitation, telecommunications, roads, railways, energy, ports, airports, and oil and gas facilities, is estimated at around $13 billion, or 4% of the total exposed assets. These figures exclusively cover direct physical damages and do not include indirect economic losses, disruptions to productive activities and services, emergency response costs, supply chain impacts, social or environmental effects, macroeconomic consequences, or the costs associated with comprehensive recovery, structural reinforcement, and reconstruction.

While the damages in infrastructure (water and sanitation, telecommunications, roads, railways, energy, ports, airports, oil and gas) are estimated at around 4% of the total exposed stock (equivalent to 13 billion US dollars).

— UNDRR ReportDetailing the estimated cost of damage to infrastructure.

The report warns that the total economic impact of the disaster will likely exceed the estimated direct damages. The study was authored by Mario Salgado-Gálvez (UNDRR), Gabriel Bernal (Ingeniar CAD/CAE Ltda.), Osvaldo Garay (ERN), Mario Ordaz (ERN), and Omar Darío Cardona (Ingeniar CAD/CAE Ltda.).

For this reason, the total economic impact of the disaster will predictably be higher than the value of the direct damages estimated here.

— UNDRR ReportWarning about the broader economic consequences beyond direct physical damage.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by El Nacional in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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