‘Everything collapsed’: Venezuelan region hit hardest by quakes cries for help

CATIA LA MAR: In the city of Catia La Mar on Venezuela’s coast, Yilsmaris Blanco stared in shock at the scenes of devastation early Thursday after powerful twin earthquakes levelled dozens of buildings.

“It was terrible. Everything, everything collapsed,” the 39-year-old woman told AFP.

“We thank God because… we’re alive, but there are people right now suffering with their relatives buried, with their relatives crushed and they can’t get them out.”

Two massive earthquakes, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, struck areas west of the capital Caracas on Wednesday evening, killing at least 164 people and injuring nearly 1,000, according to interim leader Delcy Rodriguez.

Authorities have yet to provide a figure for those missing, as reports flooded in from across the country of people trapped under rubble.

The northern region of La Guaira, facing the Caribbean, was hit hardest.

The government’s initial toll does not include data from La Guaira, designated a “disaster area”, which is also home to the capital’s international airport.

“We have nothing, right now we have nothing, not even the strength or the courage to go in there, just imagine,” said Larry Rojas, 49, standing in front of a collapsed building where his family was trapped.

Rojas was among the thousands of affected residents in a Catia La Mar neighbourhood with nearly 200 housing towers.

Some of those buildings showed large cracks and fallen walls, while dozens of others were completely reduced to rubble, according to AFP reporters.

There was no electricity in much of the area, and dozens of residents spent the night in the streets, fearful of aftershocks.

“There are survivors down there,” said Lisbeth Vasquez, a resident who managed to get out with her family from one of the fallen buildings.

‘What we need is help’

In the darkness, dozens of rescuers worked among the rubble while authorities kept a close eye as citizens shouted the names of missing loved ones.

AFP reporters saw the bodies of a man and a woman placed in the back of a pickup truck.

A well-known pharmacy in Catia La Mar was left with its glass doors shattered and its shelves empty, though authorities could not confirm if looting took place.

“What we need is help, above all technical help,” said Jose Pacheco, operations chief of the United Rescue Group of Venezuela.

“The teams that are in Caracas who know what (tools) to use and can come help here in La Guaira should come.”

His voice breaking, Pacheco, who has three decades of experience, said he had never seen anything like it.

“You can see the structures as they are, like this one here that is totally collapsed,” the 52-year-old said, counting around 14 damaged structures around him.

‘All of a sudden’

La Guaira resident Antonio Bermudez was in his living room when the shaking began “all of a sudden”.

“I started to move, I looked for shelter under a column. I was between my room and the shower. It shook harder and harder,” the 45-year-old recalled.

“I held onto the wall and the building started to come down,” Bermudez said, sitting against a wall in the street as he tried to adjust a leg he could not move after a slab fell on it.

Some residents ran through the streets with flashlights, while emergency vehicles briefly lit up the roads.

“We don’t have water, we’re dying of thirst. We go into a structure and we’re afraid it will collapse too,” Rojas said.

“Really, we need someone to help us, to send machinery. That’s what we need to get into the buildings that have collapsed.”