As rescue teams continue removing rubble following the devastating double earthquake that struck Venezuela on June 24, the scale of the tragedy becomes increasingly clear. The latest official report raises the toll to 235 dead and over 4,300 injured, with confirmation in recent hours that several foreign nationals are among the fatalities.
The force of the natural event—two consecutive quakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 with an epicenter in Carabobo state—caused unprecedented damage to infrastructure in the north-central part of the country.
International Concern: Foreign Victims
The grief has crossed Venezuela’s borders. Foreign ministries from various nations have begun confirming the deaths and disappearances of their citizens, primarily trapped after the collapse of residential buildings in Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira.
As of Friday morning, the breakdown of foreign victims includes:
- Portugal: 9 citizens dead and at least 56 missing, most of them residents in severely affected areas of La Guaira.
- Spain: 3 confirmed deaths reported by family members and 99 people still unaccounted for by consular channels.
- Brazil: 2 citizens (a man and a woman) lost their lives, according to the Brazilian foreign ministry.
- China and Italy: The deaths of 2 Chinese citizens and one Italian-Venezuelan citizen have been confirmed.
Embassies are maintaining 24-hour emergency hotlines and have urged their citizens to report any information about missing relatives, while grappling with telecommunications outages in disaster zones.
La Guaira: The Epicenter of Collapse
Though the quake was strongly felt across the country and even in neighboring Colombia, La Guaira state is the tragedy’s ground zero. Authorities estimate that over 100 buildings collapsed due to the seismic activity, leaving around 70,000 families severely affected.
In the capital, Caracas, neighborhoods like Altamira and Los Palos Grandes also reported partial or total structural collapses. Fear of aftershocks—over 130 have been recorded since Wednesday—has forced thousands of families to spend nights in streets, plazas, and makeshift shelters.
Global Solidarity Underway
With the local emergency system overwhelmed, the international community has responded swiftly. Joining Venezuelan firefighters and Civil Protection teams are specialized rescue units from Switzerland, the United States, Italy, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, and Chile.
Spain has sent a military aircraft with 59 members of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) and K-9 units, while Portugal is preparing to deploy around fifty civil protection experts.
Under tons of concrete, every minute counts. The silence in the collapse zones is broken only when rescuers ask for heavy machinery to be turned off upon hearing a possible cry for help. For the hundreds of families waiting behind security cordons, hope is the last thing to fade.
