At least 32 people have died and more than 700 have been injured after two powerful earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, the country’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez has said.
The toll did not include La Guaira, the coastal state worst hit by the disaster, which Rodríguez described as a disaster zone with dozens of collapsed buildings.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recorded the first quake at magnitude 7.2 shortly after 6pm local time on June 24, with its epicentre west of Morón on the Caribbean coast, about 168 kilometres (104 miles) west of the capital, Caracas.
A second, stronger tremor of magnitude 7.5 followed barely a minute later, the USGS said. It was the most powerful earthquake recorded near Venezuela since at least 1900, according to seismological records.
A tsunami advisory was briefly issued for parts of the southern Caribbean before being lifted.
Buildings collapsed in Caracas and along the northern coast, sending residents fleeing into the streets. In Macuto, in La Guaira, most of an eight-storey seafront hotel was reduced to rubble.
Jorge Rodríguez, president of the national assembly, said as many as 15 buildings had collapsed in La Guaira state alone.
Hospitals were treating large numbers of casualties, with the injured arriving at both public and private facilities, the acting President said.
Delcy Rodríguez declared a state of emergency in a late-night address, warning that the toll could climb as rescue teams reached the worst-affected areas.
She has governed as acting President since the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro by United States forces in January, according to international reports.
Offers of assistance arrived from across the Americas, including the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and El Salvador.
President Donald Trump said Washington stood ready to help and had instructed federal agencies to prepare a rapid response.
The European Union, the largest humanitarian donor to Venezuela, has allocated more than €572 million to the crisis since 2016, according to the European Commission.
The Commission has estimated that 7.9 million people in the country already needed humanitarian assistance before the earthquakes.
Venezuelans form the second-largest group of asylum seekers in the EU after Afghans, and the disaster threatened to deepen a migration crisis that has driven nearly eight million people abroad over the past decade.
