Caracas hospital treats quake casualties as Venezuela death toll rises

A 13-year-old girl with broken bones waited alone in Domingo Luciani Hospital in Caracas after the earthquakes tore through her family. Yenderlin Cabarza survived the collapse that killed her mother and uncle, one of many children and teenagers now arriving at emergency rooms across the capital as Venezuela’s death toll climbed.

Inside the hospital, staff were treating quake casualties sent in from the worst-hit neighborhoods and nearby states. A hospital list carried 22 names of patients aged between 4 and 19, while families kept searching for relatives still missing beneath the rubble.

The numbers kept rising outside the ward. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez said on June 25 that at least 164 people had died and 971 had been injured after back-to-back quakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck on June 24. By June 26, the death toll had risen to at least 235, with about 4,300 injured, as rescue crews continued working through destroyed buildings and damaged streets.

Hundreds of people were still trapped under debris and many more were unaccounted for in Caracas and the surrounding states of Aragua, Carabobo, Falcón, La Guaira and Miranda. In some places, residents and rescue workers dug with bare hands because equipment was limited and access was slow, while others described scenes of panic and chaos as aftershocks and uncertainty spread through the area.

The earthquakes were Venezuela’s strongest sequence in more than a century, and UNICEF estimates 3.9 million children live in the affected areas.