Rescuers in 'critical hours' to find survivors as death toll reaches 1,450
The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly has warned time is running out to rescue survivors trapped under the rubble.
The death toll from the earthquakes has risen to at least 1,450 people, with 3,150 injured and 12,721 others displaced, Jorge Rodríguez said yesterday in a televised address.
“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,” Rodríguez said.
Search and rescue operations continue for survivors trapped under collapsed buildings in the coastal state of La Guaira on 28 June, 2026. Photograph: Cem Tekkesinoglu/Anadolu via Getty Images
More search and rescue teams are arriving in Venezuela five days after the powerful 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes struck within a minute of each other on Wednesday evening, flattening buildings in the north of the country.
The second quake was one of the strongest tremors to hit Venezuela in a century. At least 68,900 people have been reported unaccounted for by their families.
Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters define the narrow window for rescuing the living. After that the search usually becomes one of recovering bodies.
There have been glimmers of hope in an ongoing tragedy that has shaken a country already mired in an economic crisis caused by years of crippling US-led sanctions, hyperinflation, government corruption and mismanagement.
A man and his teenage son were found alive under the rubble in Venezuela on Sunday, in a town about 40km north of the capital Caracas, AFP journalists reported. The discovery of survivors in Caraballeda was made by French and American rescue teams.
Thirty-three people were rescued from the rubble in Venezuela on Saturday, the country’s president said.
The US state department hailed the rescue of an infant by American rescue crews over the weekend, posting a video to X showing rescuers removing the wailing child from the rubble.
A Colombian rescue team saved an 11-year-old boy, Moises, who had been trapped about 3 metres (10 feet) deep in rubble, after identifying his location with a scanner, Reuters TV reported. He was removed on a stretcher with a broken arm. His mother and sister were killed.
On Friday, after 32 hours stuck under debris, a mother and her 18-day-old baby were found alive and rescued.
Mother and baby rescued from rubble 32 hours after Venezuela earthquakes – video
Rescuers in 'critical hours' to find survivors as death toll reaches 1,450
The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly has warned time is running out to rescue survivors trapped under the rubble.
The death toll from the earthquakes has risen to at least 1,450 people, with 3,150 injured and 12,721 others displaced, Jorge Rodríguez said yesterday in a televised address.
“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,” Rodríguez said.
Search and rescue operations continue for survivors trapped under collapsed buildings in the coastal state of La Guaira on 28 June, 2026. Photograph: Cem Tekkesinoglu/Anadolu via Getty Images
More search and rescue teams are arriving in Venezuela five days after the powerful 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes struck within a minute of each other on Wednesday evening, flattening buildings in the north of the country.
The second quake was one of the strongest tremors to hit Venezuela in a century. At least 68,900 people have been reported unaccounted for by their families.
Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters define the narrow window for rescuing the living. After that the search usually becomes one of recovering bodies.
<small>Source: The Guardian</small>
