Venezuela rescuers race to find quake survivors as UN warns of hunger and disease

VENEZUELA: Rescue teams in Venezuela continued a desperate search for survivors on Tuesday, nearly a week after twin powerful earthquakes devastated parts of the country, as the United Nations warned that those who survived the disaster now face growing risks of hunger, disease and displacement.

Rescuers cling to hope amid mounting death toll

At the collapsed Los Cocos public housing complex in La Guaira state, rescuers repeatedly called for silence in the hope of hearing signs of life beneath the rubble before resuming painstaking excavation work.

Emergency workers, including Mexico’s Topos rescue team and Venezeulan military cadets, continued tunneling through the debris, while relatives anxiously waited nearby for news of missing loved ones.

Elsewhere in Macuto, rescue teams from Ecuador and the United States ended efforts to reach a mother and her three children after receiving no response for more than 40 hours. Officials said they feared they would now recover bodies rather than survivors.

Jordanian rescuers earlier pulled a child alive from the rubble, marking the only reported rescue on the sixth day of operations, according to Venezuelan authorities.

The government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez has said at least 1,943 people have been killed, thousands injured and around 16,000 left homeless. An opposition-backed website estimates that about 43,000 people remain missing.

NASA estimates that around 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed by the twin earthquakes, which struck seconds apart with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5. In many affected areas, relatives and neighbours have continued clearing debris without professional rescue assistance.

At a temporary morgue in La Guaira, grieving families gathered to identify loved ones, while rows of coffins and body bags highlighted the scale of the tragedy. A senior UN official said authorities were preparing 10,000 body bags amid expectations that the death toll would rise significantly.

UN agencies warn of humanitarian crisis

United Nations agencies warned that survivors now face worsening humanitarian conditions as food shortages, damaged healthcare facilities and the threat of disease compound the disaster.

The World Food Programme appealed for $50m to provide emergency food assistance to up to 500,000 people over the next three months, saying it could expand support to one million people if sufficient funding becomes available. The agency has already distributed a month’s supply of food to affected families in La Guaira and established temporary feeding centres.

The World Health Organisation warned that Venezuela’s healthcare system had been severely strained, with several health centres damaged or only partially operational. It also cautioned that overcrowded shelters and low vaccination coverage could increase the risk of outbreaks of diseases such as dengue and yellow fever.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA and private gas distributor Domegas said they were inspecting gas pipelines serving around 600,000 customers in Caracas to detect and repair leaks caused by the earthquakes.

The United States military said it had deployed more than 900 personnel inside Venezuela, with additional forces stationed in Puerto Rico and Curaçao, to support international relief operations as emergency efforts continue.