Venezuela quake death toll rises as volunteers search rubble in Caracas

Volunteers in a middle-class neighborhood of Caracas used drills, picks and hammers to break through concrete as the search for anyone trapped beneath the rubble stretched into another day. The improvised rescue effort came after two earthquakes struck northern Venezuela on Wednesday, June 24, and the death toll had already reached 589 with 2,980 injured by Friday, June 26. Later counts pushed the number of dead above 1,400 as firefighters, soldiers and civilian volunteers kept digging through collapsed buildings.

The earthquakes were measured at magnitudes 7.1 and 7.5, and the damage spread across Caracas and surrounding communities, including parts of La Guaira. In neighborhoods such as Altamira and Los Palos Grandes, residents arrived carrying their own tools because many families could not wait for formal crews to reach them. Across northern Venezuela, people searched for missing relatives amid piles of broken masonry and sheared concrete.

The crucial window for finding people alive after a collapse is the first 48 to 72 hours, though it can extend if victims have access to food and water. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs identified the most urgent needs as search and rescue, emergency shelter, emergency health care, trauma care and psychosocial support. At the same time, volunteer traffic clogged access roads in some areas and slowed professional rescue crews trying to reach the worst-hit sites.

The scale of the destruction stems from older buildings, substandard construction and Venezuela’s local geography, which left many neighborhoods vulnerable to collapse. The damage drew comparisons with the country’s worst modern earthquake disaster in 1967.