Venezuela earthquakes kill hundreds as rescue teams race to find survivors

Rescuers were still pulling bodies and survivors from collapsed buildings in Caracas and La Guaira on Friday as Venezuela’s earthquake death toll climbed to 589, with foreign teams arriving from Mexico, El Salvador, Spain, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. Many displaced residents spent the night in streets, plazas and cars because their homes were cracked or unsafe, and the search continued through rubble under a disaster now among the strongest to hit the country in more than a century.

The sequence began Wednesday evening with a magnitude 7.5 quake centered 16 km southwest of Morón at 22:05:11 UTC, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A magnitude 7.2 quake near Yumare came first, and the pair shook buildings from the coast to Caracas, where collapsed structures set off a massive search-and-rescue response. Earlier counts on Thursday put the toll at 164 dead and 971 injured before the numbers surged again the next day.

Delcy Rodríguez declared a state of emergency as the scale widened, while Health Minister Carlos Alvarado said medical centers had received about 235 dead by Thursday night. Damage was heaviest in Caracas and La Guaira, where electricity remained scarce, the airport closed and volunteers dug through wreckage with their bare hands when machinery was not available. The strain of the response showed how fragile the country’s infrastructure remained after years of economic collapse.

The disaster also drew in the United States. U.S. Southern Command said it was working with the State Department to support U.S. relief operations, and the State Department said it was deploying a regional disaster assistance response team with two urban search-and-rescue teams and mobilizing $150 million in assistance through partners on the ground. SOUTHCOM later said Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Kevin J. Jarrard arrived in Caracas to coordinate the military’s role.

The regional response is already broadening beyond bilateral aid. A Colombian Air Force plane carrying rescue crews was headed in, and the Dominican Republic’s small contingent was the first foreign team to reach La Guaira, the port city that serves as Caracas’s main gateway. With aftershocks still rattling the coast and thousands left homeless, relief flows are racing against a rising casualty count.