The death toll from twin earthquakes in Venezuela rose Friday to 920, with tens of thousands reported missing as international rescue teams boosted a desperate and slow-moving search for survivors.
Caracas residents jeered interim leader Delcy Rodriguez during her visit to a devastated neighborhood, as fury over the perceived lack of an official response mounted.
United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher told AFP that more than 50,000 people were missing after two powerful earthquakes struck within a minute of each other on Wednesday evening, flattening buildings in the north of the country.
The coastal area of La Guaira, near the capital Caracas, was the worst hit, with one building after another crumpled by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes.
Access to the disaster zone was restricted from 8:00 pm on Friday (0000 GMT Saturday), Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced in a televised address.
A rescue team from Chile arrived at one residential complex in La Guaira made up of four tall buildings housing hundreds of apartments that had largely been reduced to rubble.
“Unfortunately, the collapse is total, and there is little chance of finding survivors. Efforts are now focused on recovering the bodies of the deceased,” team leader Nadiomar Polanco said at the site, which resembles many others in the city.
Elsewhere, family members, neighbors and volunteers used their bare hands to try to dig out survivors, bemoaning the lack of heavy machinery or official help to save those trapped alive.
“I am looking for my little Gael… he was only five months old,” said an anguished Marjosly Salazar, 40, whose 16-year-old daughter died in the quake. The baby and Salazar’s cousin are both missing.
“Please, we need support here. We need machinery to start lifting the columns,” she said. “We haven’t seen any government officials here, none at all.”
In an upscale Caracas neighborhood, Rodriguez was greeted with angry chants from a crowd of people whose loved ones were trapped under the debris.
“The government isn’t doing anything for the people,” they yelled from behind cordons next to a pulverized building.
‘Very Complex’
AFP saw workers using sledgehammers to break through detritus, calling for “absolute silence” to detect cries from survivors.
“It’s a very, very complex emergency response,” the UN’s Fletcher told AFP, warning the death toll could rise significantly.
Aftershocks and destroyed buildings still posed significant dangers.
Venezuela’s worst earthquake in more than a century has come after the oil-rich country endured more than a decade of economic collapse.
The crisis has hollowed out hospitals and public services, driving millions to leave the country.
The country is still in a fragile transition six months after the United States ousted leader Nicolas Maduro.
Help Arrives
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search and rescue teams from at least 17 countries were being mobilized to help find survivors.
Spanish, Salvadoran, Swiss, Colombian, and Mexican rescue teams were already on the ground.
Rodriguez said Friday she had recieved a call from US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio who “reaffirmed their commitment to supporting the response efforts by sending rescue workers, specialist equipment, support for temporary shelters and humanitarian aid for the affected families.”
The United States said earlier it was sending a disaster response team of more than 250 personnel, including three special search-and-rescue units with dogs trained to locate people trapped beneath the rubble.
A senior US military official landed in Caracas to oversee Washington’s relief efforts.
“Even before the earthquakes, millions of people across Venezuela were facing food insecurity, collapsing health services, protection risks, and limited access to basic services,” the UN and other aid agencies said in a statement Friday.
“The international community must not allow this emergency to deepen into a larger human tragedy.”
Earthquakes of similar magnitude claimed more than 200,000 lives in Haiti in January 2010 and 73,000 lives in Kashmir in October 2005.
Foreigners killed
Those killed included 28 Portuguese nationals, five Spaniards, two Brazilians, seven Chinese nationals, one Chilean and one Italian-Venezuelan.
85 Portuguese nationals and 119 Spaniards were missing or otherwise unaccounted for, according to their respective governments.
The quakes were the most powerful to hit Venezuela since a 7.7-magnitude tremor struck offshore in 1900.
Venezuela’s northern coast sits on a boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, but had not experienced a major quake since 1997.
