Venezuela quake death toll nears 1,500 as rescue work goes on

Rescue teams are racing against time to find survivors in Venezuela following two powerful earthquakes that struck the country earlier this week. The death toll has climbed to nearly 1,500 people as foreign rescue teams pour into La Guaira, the state most affected by the disaster.

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Rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. Today (Sunday) we have recovered people alive and, therefore, operations are not being suspended. We always maintain hope.

Dozens of buildings in the coastal state, located about 40 km north of the capital Caracas, collapsed into rubble. Interim President Delcy Rodriguez announced that rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing, with occasional successes of finding people alive. She also announced a presidential commission to determine the habitability of damaged buildings.

School classes have been suspended for an additional week, and electricity has been restored to 75% of La Guaira. The government has thanked civilian volunteers but has also restricted access to the main road to La Guaira, citing traffic congestion that impedes emergency vehicle movement.

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We are in critical hours, in crucial hours to continue rescuing lives and to build camps where those people who have lost their homes, or who cannot return, for whatever reason, to their residences can stay.

Authorities reported 1,450 deaths and 3,150 injuries, with 12,721 people displaced and 774 buildings destroyed. The opposition, however, lists nearly 50,000 people as unaccounted for on a separate website. The US Geological Survey estimated that the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes could result in over 10,000 deaths.

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There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people.