Venezuela quake death toll rises as families search overwhelmed morgues

Dozens of families crowded the Bello Monte morgue in Caracas to identify relatives or claim bodies already believed dead after twin earthquakes ripped through northern Venezuela, killing 920 people and injuring 3,360. The state-run facility, designed for two bodies, was holding about 30.

The quakes struck on June 24, 2026, less than a minute apart, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 and an epicenter about 160 kilometers west of Caracas. They hit a country whose hospitals and morgues were already strained by years of economic crisis and government mismanagement, and the tremors were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century.

Authorities first put it at 32 dead and 700 injured, then 164 dead and 971 injured, then 188 dead, 1,520 injured and 157 missing, before later raising it to 235 dead and about 4,300 injured. By June 26, 172 people remained trapped, and later more than 50,000 were missing, leaving families to search hospitals, morgues and handwritten lists for any trace of relatives.

In La Guaira, residents and volunteers kept digging through collapsed buildings by hand as heavy equipment ran short and the official presence stayed thin. More than 100 buildings were reduced to rubble or damaged in the coastal region. Children arrived alone in ambulances after being pulled from debris, including a 5-year-old girl in Caracas whose 9-year-old brother and grandmother died in the collapse.

Among the families waiting at Bello Monte was Stuart Pinto, who had gone two days without sleep while waiting to receive the body of his son, Deyker Pinto, 34.