Death toll in Venezuela quakes nears 1,500

The death toll in Venezuela’s twin earthquake disaster reached 1,430 yesterday, and millions more were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs as the first US aid flights trickled into Caracas.

Facing public outrage at the response by local officials, US-backed interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez said the country was “not alone.”

The United States said one runway at Simon Bolivar International Airport was now functioning and that C-17 US military planes were landing there, while a naval ship had arrived off the coast.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search-and-rescue teams from at least 17 countries were being mobilised to help find survivors.

But the search for survivors saw desperate attempts by locals to claw away rubble from apartment buildings that collapsed in Wednesday’s double-quakes. Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters are the key, narrow window for finding the living.

There was joy in the hardest-hit coastal area of La Guaira, north of Caracas, when locals pulled an infant alive out of the wreckage on Friday, some 32 hours after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors.

In one social media video, a man welled up in tears as he held the baby in his arms.

The United Nations’ migration agency said it had examined available population and damage data and had determined that “up to 6.76 million people could be affected,” and would “require emergency shelter, safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, healthcare, protection support and essential relief items.”

National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez yesterday said 1,430 people have confirmed dead and 3,238 injured, while the UN estimated $6.7 billion in physical damage — equivalent to six percent of Venezuela’s GDP.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher on Friday told AFP the death toll could continue to soar, adding that more than 50,000 people were missing.

The government restricted access to La Guaira state on Friday, also announcing a military deployment to the disaster zone.

Venezuela’s worst earthquake in more than a century has come after the oil-rich country endured more than a decade of economic collapse.

The crisis has hollowed out hospitals and public services, driving millions to leave the country.

And the country is still in a fragile political transition six months after the US ouster of Maduro.

“Even before the earthquakes, millions of people across Venezuela were facing food insecurity, collapsing health services, protection risks, and limited access to basic services,” the UN and other aid agencies said in a statement Friday.

Earthquakes of similar magnitude claimed more than 200,000 lives in Haiti in January 2010 and 73,000 lives in Kashmir in October 2005.