Critical rescue window passes in quake-hit Venezuela as death toll nears 1,500

The critical window for finding survivors of powerful twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela narrowed further on Monday, with time running out for those still buried beneath the debris. The death toll has surpassed 1,450 and nearly 200 buildings have completely collapsed.

A man and his teen son were found alive under the rubble Sunday by French and American rescue teams in Caraballeda, a town about 40km north of Caracas.

The rescue offered a glimmer of hope in an ongoing tragedy that has shaken a country already mired in an economic crisis, but tens of thousands of people were still reported missing and the critical 72-hour window for rescuing trapped victims following a natural disaster has now passed.

Millions more people were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs after one of Latin America’s most devastating earthquake disasters.

Rescue teams from the United States, Mexico and elsewhere scrambled to save people as desperate residents dug by hand for relatives trapped in the pancaked layers and rubble of collapsed residential buildings.

Some 774 buildings were badly damaged in back-to-back quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck on Wednesday evening, including 189 buildings that have totally collapsed, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said on Sunday.