The death toll from twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday has climbed to 920, with over 50,000 people reported missing and rescue teams increasingly shifting focus from saving lives to recovering bodies amid mounting public fury at the government’s response.
Venezuela is in agony — and the anger is growing as fast as the death toll.
Two powerful earthquakes, measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, struck within a minute of each other on Wednesday evening, unleashing devastation across the north of the country and reducing entire residential blocks in the coastal area of La Guaira — near the capital Caracas — to dust and rubble. By Friday, the confirmed death toll had climbed to 920, with United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher telling AFP that more than 50,000 people remained unaccounted for.
The scale of destruction is staggering. Building after building along La Guaira’s coastline crumpled under the force of the back-to-back strikes, leaving rescue teams from across the region racing against time — and increasingly, against hope.
The Cable reported that a Chilean rescue team arriving at one residential complex — four tall apartment buildings now largely reduced to rubble — delivered the assessment that many feared.
“Unfortunately, the collapse is total, and there is little chance of finding survivors. Efforts are now focused on recovering the bodies of the deceased,” team leader Nadiomar Polanco said grimly.
That grim reality on the ground is being matched by a volatile political atmosphere. Caracas residents jeered interim leader Delcy Rodriguez during her visit to a devastated neighbourhood, their fury over the perceived sluggishness of the official government response boiling over publicly. It was a raw, unfiltered expression of grief colliding with institutional failure.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced in a televised address that access to the disaster zone would be restricted from 8:00 pm Friday — a move likely to deepen suspicions among a population already furious at its leadership.
International rescue teams continue to pour in, but with each passing hour, the operation is shifting — from rescue to recovery, from hope to grief, from searching for the living to accounting for the dead.
Venezuela was already a nation under enormous strain. Wednesday’s twin earthquakes have pushed it to the edge of something far darker.
Venezuela is in agony — and the anger is growing as fast as the death toll.
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