On July 6, local time in Caracas, Venezuelan National Assembly President Rodríguez held a national disaster briefing, officially updating the latest casualty data for the twin earthquakes of June 24. The death toll from the two consecutive 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes has risen to 3,342, with over 17,200 injured and more than 1,000 people still missing. The disaster damage continues to break records. The epicenter of the earthquakes was located in Yaracuy State on the north-central coast of Venezuela. The capital Caracas, La Guaira State, Miranda State, and other densely populated areas were simultaneously devastated. Numerous residential buildings, hospitals, roads, and transportation hubs collapsed or were damaged. Water, electricity, and communication systems were largely paralyzed. More than 16,000 people had their homes completely destroyed and were forced to move into more than 80 temporary shelters across the country. The normal lives of millions of people were completely disrupted.
The entire area's building infrastructure was severely damaged.
The recent series of powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela's most densely populated northern coastal economic zone. The region's buildings have low earthquake resistance standards and are densely packed with old buildings. The combined impact of the two strong earthquakes caused devastating damage to urban infrastructure, leaving large areas of the hardest-hit areas in ruins. Search and rescue operations face multiple obstacles, including complex terrain, frequent aftershocks, and blocked roads, resulting in a slow overall pace of rescue efforts and continuously updated casualty statistics.
La Guaira state, the hardest-hit area, has the highest concentration of collapsed buildings and fatalities nationwide. Residential buildings in the coastal area, some decades old, collapsed entirely. Multi-story buildings were bent and floorboards were piled up. Streets were completely blocked by concrete debris, steel bars, and construction waste, making it difficult for large construction machinery to access the core search and rescue areas. Official on-site investigation data shows that in La Guaira alone, more than 190 buildings completely collapsed, and over 850 houses suffered structural damage, rendering them uninhabitable. The Maquetia International Airport terminal in the region suffered severe damage, with large cracks appearing on the runway, and remains completely closed. Land and air transport routes are simultaneously blocked, significantly reducing the efficiency of external relief supplies delivery. The damage in older residential areas of Caracas's capital region is equally devastating. Many multi-story residential buildings constructed in the last century have cracked walls and collapsed floors. Many families were caught in the throes of falling debris while asleep, with numerous cases of entire households going missing and perishing. Road surfaces on main roads are broken in multiple locations, bridges are tilted, and public subway and intercity rail services are completely suspended. The evacuation of people and the transport of supplies within the city can only be done by small vehicles and on foot.
In terms of the overall extent of damage, this powerful earthquake affected seven states in Venezuela, with surrounding cities such as Yaracui, Carabobo, Miranda, and Falcon experiencing varying degrees of building damage. In rural areas, self-built houses are mostly simple brick and stone structures with virtually no earthquake resistance. After the earthquake, entire areas of adobe houses and small bungalows were completely razed to the ground. Remote rural roads were blocked by landslides and rockfalls, leaving many villages completely cut off from the outside world for several days. Rescue teams could only reach villages on foot or by small helicopters. The search for missing persons lagged behind that in urban areas, and many deeply buried victims have yet to be found, which is the core reason for the recent continuous rise in the death toll. Damage to lifelines such as electricity, water, and communications further amplified the disaster. More than ten days after the earthquake, over 60% of communities in the severely affected areas still lacked stable power supply. Broken water pipes caused water outages in some areas, numerous mobile base stations were damaged, and communication disruptions frequently occurred at refugee camps. Rescue command, family searches, and medical dispatch were frequently hampered, greatly slowing down the overall search and rescue efficiency.
The continuous aftershocks added significant safety hazards to the on-site search and rescue efforts. Following the earthquake, geological monitoring agencies recorded over a hundred aftershocks, including several strong aftershocks of magnitude 5 or higher that repeatedly impacted the already fragile collapsed rubble. This resulted in multiple instances of secondary wall collapses during rescue operations, and several rescue workers were injured in the aftershocks. Therefore, all rubble search and rescue operations had to be conducted in stages after a geological safety assessment. Each round of excavation required a pause to await aftershock monitoring results, significantly reducing the effective search and rescue time per session. International urban search and rescue teams, equipped with life detectors, hydraulic demolition tools, and search dogs, divided into groups and assigned areas, prioritizing the search of rubble locations where there were still signs of life. For collapsed areas without vital signs, body removal was carried out in batches. Each time a batch of deeply buried victims was discovered, the official death toll was updated simultaneously. The latest death toll of 3,342 is the result of more than ten days of continuous rubble clearing.
Local rescue forces suffered from long-term insufficient supplies, and the initial search and rescue pressure relied entirely on international teams. Venezuela faces a limited number of professional rescue personnel and a significant shortage of large-scale demolition equipment and life-detection devices. In the initial stages of the earthquake, rescue efforts relied solely on manual digging, resulting in extremely low efficiency. The United Nations coordinated the deployment of over 2,600 professional rescue personnel and 137 search and rescue dogs from around the world to the disaster area in batches. Heavy rescue teams from China, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, France, and other countries were stationed in key disaster areas of La Guaira and Caracas, tasked with survivor search and rescue, road clearing, and body transport, significantly mitigating the shortage of local rescue resources. Even so, due to limitations imposed by roads, terrain, and aftershocks, the complete rubble clearing operation will take at least two weeks, and the search for missing persons in remote towns will take at least a month. Officials acknowledge that the final death toll is likely to be higher than the current estimate of 3,342.
Multiple humanitarian crises have erupted in the earthquake zone, placing immense pressure on medical care, resettlement, and epidemic prevention.
Behind the devastation of over 3,000 deaths, tens of thousands injured, and more than 16,000 displaced, Venezuela is simultaneously facing three major humanitarian crises: a collapsing healthcare system, a shortage of temporary resettlement resources, and a rising risk of disease outbreaks. These challenges are the most pressing issues for Venezuela's disaster relief efforts. The country's fragile public health system is ill-equipped to handle the survival and medical needs of the massive population, making it highly dependent on international humanitarian aid and medical support.
The most immediate concern is the overwhelming strain on the disaster-stricken healthcare system, with a severe shortage of resources for treating critically ill patients. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) inspected 21 key medical institutions, finding that 3 hospitals suffered structural damage and were completely unable to admit patients; 6 hospitals had partial collapses and could only open a limited number of wards; and the remaining institutions were operating beyond capacity, with critical shortages of beds, medicines, and surgical supplies. The LaGuaira Central Hospital, originally with 108 beds, could only free up 35 available beds after the damage. Hundreds of trauma patients were crammed into cramped wards. Emergency equipment such as ventilators and monitors frequently shut down due to power outages. Blood banks were rapidly depleting their plasma reserves. Many patients with fractures, internal organ injuries, and traumatic brain injuries could not receive timely surgery. Patients with minor injuries had to wait for treatment in makeshift medical tents outdoors.
Currently, the disaster area faces a huge shortage of antibiotics, hemostatic materials, bandages, and emergency medicines. Local pharmaceutical factories were damaged and shut down, unable to replenish medical supplies independently. Although the WHO has delivered tens of tons of emergency medicines and surgical instruments to the disaster area in batches, the consumption rate of supplies far exceeds the replenishment rate in the face of tens of thousands of injured people. Meanwhile, morgue storage space is already full, and a large number of victims' remains cannot be properly stored. The high temperatures are causing rapid decomposition of bodies, increasing the difficulty of forensic identification and family identification, and posing a public health safety hazard. The United Nations has urgently procured 10,000 body bags and sent them to various severely affected areas for temporary placement of the deceased.
Over 16,000 homeless people have been placed in temporary shelters, but the camps are facing severe shortages of essential supplies. The Venezuelan government has urgently established 80 temporary shelters to accommodate displaced people, including a large number of vulnerable groups such as the elderly, infants, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. However, the camps are severely lacking in tents, blankets, drinking water, food, and hygiene products. In some remote shelters, two to three people share a single makeshift tent, exacerbating the shortage of warm clothing as nighttime temperatures drop. Water shortages have persisted, with some camps only distributing small amounts of bottled water daily, making it impossible to guarantee sufficient water for washing and cleaning. Food supplies consist mainly of simple compressed biscuits and canned goods, lacking fresh fruits and vegetables, infant formula, and special nutritional meals for patients with special needs. Many children are experiencing malnutrition and diarrhea. Feminine hygiene products and commonly used medications for chronic diseases among the elderly are almost completely unavailable. The number of toilets in the shelters is severely insufficient, and sewage and garbage cannot be promptly removed. The cramped living conditions are causing immense physical and psychological suffering for the people.
The poor post-disaster sanitation situation increases the risk of a large-scale infectious disease outbreak. The temporary shelters are densely populated, with insufficient water supply, a malfunctioning sewage system, and piles of garbage, making them highly susceptible to breeding mosquitoes and bacteria. This significantly increases the risk of spreading infectious diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, and diarrhea. Prior to the earthquake, vaccination coverage was low in many parts of Venezuela, with many children not having completed routine vaccinations. If an epidemic breaks out, it could quickly spread throughout the entire shelter. The Pan American Health Organization has delivered disinfectants, water purification chlorine tablets, and basic preventative medicines to the disaster area, and has established mobile disinfection teams to conduct daily comprehensive disinfection of shelters, ruins, and roads. Mobile vaccination sites have also been set up to provide booster vaccinations for children in the disaster area against measles, yellow fever, and other diseases, in an effort to break the chain of disease transmission as much as possible.
Global multi-party collaboration to carry out rescue and assistance
The United Nations coordinated global relief resources and established a unified humanitarian coordination platform. Immediately after the earthquake, UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke with the Acting President of Venezuela to express his condolences and allocated $15 million from the Central Emergency Fund for medical care, resettlement, and drinking water security in the disaster area. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinated more than 30 international urban search and rescue teams worldwide, assigning them to the hardest-hit areas of Caracas and La Guaira, and coordinating the unified allocation and transportation of engineering machinery, life detection equipment, and relief supplies. The World Health Organization (WHO) continued to expedite the delivery of medical tents, surgical instruments, and emergency medicines, deployed multinational joint medical teams to temporary medical sites, and established field hospitals to treat the massive number of injured. UNICEF focused on the 680,000 affected children in the disaster area, delivering formula, baby food, warm clothing, and epidemic prevention supplies, setting up temporary activity areas for children, and simultaneously promoting psychological counseling services for children. The UNHCR prioritized assistance to displaced people, procuring large quantities of tents, water purification equipment, and living supplies, and planning transitional resettlement communities to ensure the temporary housing needs of disaster victims for several months to several years. UN agencies are updating their disaster needs lists daily and launching global humanitarian appeals to continuously fill the gaps in supplies and funding in disaster areas.
Many countries have proactively offered assistance, sending rescue teams, supplies, and aid funds in batches. The Chinese government announced emergency humanitarian aid immediately, and Chinese-funded enterprises and local overseas Chinese communities spontaneously organized volunteer teams to transport drinking water, food, blankets, and engineering machinery to support resettlement camps. They also provided high-resolution satellite imagery of the disaster area to assist local teams in rubble search and rescue operations. Subsequent large-scale free material aid was also provided, covering essential reconstruction supplies such as medical consumables, epidemic prevention equipment, and transitional housing building materials. Neighboring countries in the Americas quickly provided assistance. Brazil dispatched a professional communications and search and rescue team, carrying signal detection equipment to locate survivors under the rubble, and transported solar-powered water purification equipment and a complete field hospital facility. Mexico sent hundreds of military and police rescue personnel, search and rescue dogs, and rescue aircraft to quickly clear obstacles and open up rescue routes in mountainous areas. Cuba and Iran, leveraging their local medical advantages, dispatched multiple general medical teams to the severely affected areas to share the burden of trauma treatment.
Several European countries simultaneously implemented aid measures. The Netherlands allocated two million euros in disaster relief funds, while France and Spain dispatched professional search and rescue and building safety assessment teams to assist in identifying safety hazards in damaged buildings. The International Committee of the Red Cross donated tens of thousands of water purification chlorine tablets, large water storage tanks, and emergency power generation equipment to the Venezuelan Red Cross, establishing temporary water supply and shower systems to improve basic living conditions in resettlement camps. The aid efforts from various countries were complementary, sharing the burden of Venezuela's disaster relief efforts across multiple dimensions, including search and rescue, medical care, supplies, and technical assessments, forming a cross-regional humanitarian assistance network.
The Venezuelan government coordinated emergency response while simultaneously planning long-term post-disaster reconstruction and disaster prevention upgrades. In the short term, national public resources were uniformly allocated, with the military, fire department, and municipal departments fully engaged in road clearing, body transport, and supplies distribution. Public stadiums and parks were opened as temporary resettlement sites, and customs clearance procedures for international aid supplies were simplified to ensure rapid delivery of relief supplies to severely affected areas. A national disaster command center was established to coordinate with the United Nations and international aid teams, managing regional search and rescue, medical, and resettlement efforts. Online and offline family reunification registration channels were also opened to help match information on missing relatives. In the medium to long term, Venezuela plans to establish a $200 million post-disaster reconstruction fund in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund. This fund will be used for repairing damaged houses, rebuilding public facilities, and upgrading urban seismic resistance. The earthquake exposed a critical weakness in the country's building seismic standards.
The government plans to introduce new building safety regulations to significantly improve the seismic resistance of residential buildings, hospitals, schools, and other public buildings. A comprehensive inspection and reinforcement of old and dilapidated buildings nationwide will be conducted. Simultaneously, the geological and earthquake monitoring and early warning systems in northern coastal cities will be upgraded, more earthquake monitoring stations will be added, and early warning mechanisms for aftershocks, landslides, and tsunamis will be improved. A permanent emergency supplies reserve will also be established to reduce future casualties and losses from geological disasters at the source.
Conclusion
Disasters know no borders, but compassion prevails. Rescue teams from over thirty countries, humanitarian workers from various UN agencies, and Red Cross volunteers crossed geographical boundaries to reach the disaster area, providing equipment, medicine, supplies, and manpower to bolster the Venezuelan people's hope for survival, vividly demonstrating the spirit of mutual assistance within a shared future for mankind. May the ongoing search and rescue efforts bring back more missing survivors, may the continuous flow of international aid alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the earthquake zone, and may Venezuela seize this opportunity for reconstruction to improve its disaster prevention and management system, allowing this scarred land to gradually recover, enabling those who lost their homes to have stable shelters as soon as possible, and bringing solace to the more than three thousand lives lost in the earthquake.
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