At least 1,430 people have died and more than 3,200 have been injured after two powerful earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, the country’s authorities have said.
National assembly president Jorge Rodríguez gave the latest official toll on June 27 and warned it would rise, with more than 400 aftershocks recorded and tens of thousands of people reported missing. The figure for the missing was unconfirmed.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) recorded a magnitude 7.2 foreshock on June 24, followed 39 seconds later by a stronger 7.5 quake centred in Yaracuy state. It was the country’s most powerful earthquake in more than a century.
The United Nations put the cost of the physical damage at around $6.7 billion (€5.9 billion).
The coastal state of La Guaira, north of Caracas, was worst hit and has been placed under full military control. Authorities urged residents to stay away from coastal roads to keep access clear for rescuers.
The European Union has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism and mobilised €5 million in emergency aid, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said after speaking to acting President Delcy Rodríguez.
Several member states, among them Spain, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, sent search teams, firefighters and medical staff. The bloc’s Copernicus satellite service was mapping the damage.
In all, 24 countries had sent more than 2,700 rescuers, 86 sniffer-dog units and 521 tonnes of supplies, the acting President said.
More than 1,600 foreign rescuers had reached Venezuela by the weekend, with the first 72 hours, regarded as the best chance of finding survivors, having passed.
Pope Leo XIV sent an initial €100,000 and offered prayers for Venezuelans at his Sunday Angelus. The United States pledged $150 million (€132 million) and moved Navy ships closer to the coast.
A Colombian team pulled an 11-year-old boy from the rubble in Caraballeda, while rescuers from El Salvador and Peru freed a 60-year-old woman trapped for 86 hours.
Rodríguez has led the country since United States forces removed former President Nicolás Maduro in January, and the legitimacy of her administration remains widely contested.
Opposition leaders Edmundo González and María Corina Machado pressed for aid to reach victims directly, without intermediaries.
The European Union is the largest humanitarian donor to Venezuela, having given more than €572 million since 2016, according to the European Commission.
The Commission has said 7.9 million people needed aid before the disaster, in a country where Venezuelans form the second-largest group of asylum seekers in the EU after Afghans.
