The requirement to carry a government-issued safe-entry pass became a flashpoint in Venezuela on Saturday, as residents desperate to dig for survivors lined up for hours outside a Caracas concert hall while the confirmed death toll from this week’s twin earthquakes reached 1,430.
“You need a permit to save lives — just imagine,” said Carlos Itriago, 27, among those held back from the disaster zone. Nearby, Ezequiel Rivero, 53, said he had been waiting since daybreak: “I’ve been here since dawn standing in line so I can go rescue people.” He pointed to the time already lost: “Look at what time it is… how many lives have we already lost by now?”
Authorities have sealed off La Guaira state, the coastal area north of the capital that absorbed the worst of the destruction, sending in the military and ordering would-be volunteers to register before entering. National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez reported 1,430 deaths and 3,238 injuries in a televised update, figures that officials have repeatedly cautioned will rise as crews reach buildings still unsearched.
The grief in La Guaira has in some cases turned to fury at the slow official response. Yessica Mendoza, 43, said she and others recovered her daughter’s body themselves after 25-year-old Yesimar Rodríguez and her husband, 26-year-old Jhomel Anaya, were crushed when their home gave way on Wednesday. “We were the ones who pulled them out ourselves. No help ever came,” she told AFP. The couple, she said, would be cremated without a wake because the bodies were decomposing too quickly.
Not every account ended in loss. Roughly 32 hours after the tremors, rescuers in La Guaira pulled a living infant from the debris, a moment captured in a widely shared video showing a man in tears cradling the baby.
The two quakes — magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 — struck within seconds of each other on Wednesday evening and ranked as the country’s most powerful in over a century. The UN’s migration agency, after reviewing population and damage figures, concluded that as many as 6.76 million people could be affected and would need emergency shelter, clean water, sanitation, healthcare and basic relief. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the toll could climb much higher, citing more than 50,000 people reported missing. Damage has been estimated by the UN at $6.7 billion, around six percent of the country’s economic output.
Foreign assistance has been arriving from across the region, with rescue convoys reaching Venezuela from Mexico, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic. Roughly 21 countries are sending search-and-rescue teams, according to Jorge Rodríguez. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said she had spoken with US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who she said reaffirmed their support for the relief effort.
The catastrophe lands on a country already weakened by more than a decade of economic decline that has gutted hospitals and public services and pushed millions to emigrate. For comparison, quakes of similar size killed more than 200,000 people in Haiti in 2010 and some 73,000 in Kashmir in 2005.
