LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — With the window for finding survivors shrinking fast, Venezuelans combed Monday through more ruins of buildings toppled by last week’s powerful back-to-back earthquakes, and attention turned to the country's humanitarian crisis that could persist for years.
Relief organizations say the first 72 hours after a natural disaster is the most crucial time period for rescues, though survival can be extended if people have access
to food and water. Five days after the twin quakes, questions loomed about whether the cash-strapped government will be able to coordinate the effort needed to care for thousands of people who have been left homeless.
In other developments, a 4.6 magnitude aftershock rumbled through the disaster zone in the northern state of La Guaira.
The death toll stood at more than 1,700 people, according to the government.
Facing criticism that authorities have done too little, too slowly, government officials promoted their recovery and rescue efforts on social and state-run media.
In a televised speech Monday, Jorge Rodríguez, the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly and brother of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, said electricity had been restored to 90% of the hard-hit state of La Guaira. He said authorities were racing to evaluate damaged buildings that still posed a danger and had set up 15 temporary encampments for displaced people.
Delcy Rodríguez, who came to power in January after U.S. President Donald Trump's administration seized former President Nicolás Maduro, shared footage of survivors lifted out of the ruins to applause.
But such bright spots are rare at the quake's epicenter, where families keep vigil at search sites.
“We have to stay strong, even without food, without sleep,” said Ana Rada, watching as civil defense workers looked for her brother. “Until I see the body, I still have hope.”
Following a weekend of smaller aftershocks and what the government said were more than 600 seismic events since Wednesday's quakes, the moderate temblor on Monday struck 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Caraballeda on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and measured 4.6 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey. Colombia’s geological survey put the magnitude at 5.1.
Jorge Rodríguez said there were no reports of additional damage, but the latest aftershock sent residents in the capital of Caracas screaming into the streets.
“Here we are again, back in the street. I don’t know when we’ll have a moment of true peace,” said Concepción Hernández, 51, who evacuated her apartment building in the Chacao municipality of Caracas.
The Caracas Metro said it would temporarily suspend service Monday to inspect infrastructure following the aftershock.
Dozens of countries have offered assistance. But the disaster has raised expectations for the Trump administration after its takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry earlier this year.
In a briefing with reporters, a senior State Department official said 300 first responders sent from the U.S. are working on the ground and two dozen C-17 military transport planes arrive every day with supplies. Financial support from the U.S. now exceeds $300 million.
The American military is also assisting with some repairs, including damage to the port in La Guaira to enable the arrival of more relief supplies by sea. Another team is helping to manage air traffic after the quakes destroyed part of the control tower at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
It seemed unlikely, however, that the Trump administration would grant temporary humanitarian protections to Venezuelans as previous administrations have done for people from disaster-stricken countries already in the U.S. Such action was taken after earthquakes in 2010 in Haiti and 2001 in El Salvador. Venezuelans have been a major focus of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Among the rescuers digging through the rubble Monday in La Guaira was 31-year-old miner Jean Sosa, who said he was deported from the U.S. in January over a missed immigration court hearing and returned to Caracas last month. He said he was dazed by an odyssey that involved traveling by bus through five countries after immigration agents left him in southern Mexico without his passport, phone or wallet.
He had built a new life in New York City over the past four years, working at a taco stand near Penn Station, before Department of Homeland Security officials detained him and shuttled him for months between immigration detention centers.
Since arriving Wednesday in La Guaira, Sosa has scrambled to pull people from the rubble in the absence of national rescue teams. For the first few days before more help arrived, survivors were driven to hospitals by private car or motorcycle, he said.
“I’m not involved in politics, but I believe many people could have been saved if there had been equipment and support from top authorities from the very beginning,” he told The Associated Press, wearing a helmet and a black T-shirt splotched with dust in the port city where he said he had already rescued 20 people alive.
Those rescues heartened him, he said, despite the lack of supplies. “We’re working without gloves, without equipment, borrowing supplies, improvising bandages and whatever else we can.”
Experts and aid organizations are struggling to assess the scope of damage, but they generally agree that the government's figures are likely a vast undercount. Jorge Rodríguez said that as of Monday, a total of 15,866 people had been affected, while the number of damaged or collapsed buildings had reached 855.
A preliminary assessment by NASA estimated that the earthquake damaged or destroyed 58,870 buildings. The assessment relied on radar imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, which can detect changes to infrastructure.
The United Nations has said that up to 6.8 million of Venezuela’s nearly 30 million residents may be affected, which could mean being displaced or losing access to essential services such as electricity and water.
The Venezuelan Red Cross said it expected its relief efforts to continue for two years.
Because of the chaos and poor cellphone service, many Venezuelans have turned to non-governmental digital databases to report their loved ones as missing. More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one such database, though it is unclear how many have been found.
Firefighter Kleider Carrillo said nothing prepared him for the destruction in La Guaira.
“When you study for this profession, you’re trained for situations like this," he said. “But what's in textbooks is one thing. Reality is another.”
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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in Tijuana, Mexico, contributed to this report.
