The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes left at least 164 dead and hundreds missing, the authorities said. The full scale of the damage was still becoming clear. Share full articleVideoPowerful Back-to-Back Earthquakes Hit Venezuela1:36Dozens of buildings were toppled by twin earthquakes, one of which was the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century.CreditCredit...Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times See more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra más de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de búsqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google Latest PinnedMaría Victoria Fermín and Anatoly Kurmanaev Here’s the latest.Rescue crews intensified their search for survivors on Thursday as Venezuelans began to grapple with the scale of the devastation caused by the worst earthquakes to hit the country in nearly six decades. The Venezuelan government said that at least 164 people had been killed and nearly 1,000 injured in the twin quakes on Wednesday, which struck the country’s populous northern states. The toll was virtually certain to rise as rescuers began to reach the worst-affected areas. Videos posted on social media show collapsed residential towers in the capital, Caracas, and in the nearby port city of La Guaira, where more than 100 buildings were destroyed, according to the United Nations’ main humanitarian agency. There were growing fears about the toll in nearby shantytowns, where many people live in precarious homes built on hillsides. Venezuela is rich in oil and other resources, but is still trying to emerge from a decade-long depression that wiped out most of its economic production and led millions to flee the country. Its rescue services have been hollowed out, infrastructure has been left to rot and inflation has reached record highs, compounding the challenges of the recovery. The disaster comes at a decisive moment in Venezuela’s modern history, less than six months after the U.S. military raid that removed the long-ruling autocrat, Nicolás Maduro. His arrest by U.S. forces in January has transformed the country from a U.S. adversary into an effective satellite state. The earthquakes are expected to be the worst humanitarian disaster in Venezuela in decades. The hard-hit port of La Guaira is still scarred by devastating landslides in 1999 that are estimated to have killed at least 15,000. The earthquakes are likely to scramble the complex tussle for power and fortune that has followed Mr. Maduro’s downfall. His former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, took over as president with Washington’s blessing but has faced growing popular discontent — and is resisting calls for new elections. In the hours after the quakes, Ms. Rodríguez called for national unity and pointed to the promises of international aid received by her government, including from President Trump. Her handling of the disaster, however, will be scrutinized by Venezuelan voters hungry for political change, as well as the emboldened opposition. Venezuela, in recent months, has become an arena for investors scrambling to profit from Ms. Rodríguez’s campaign to open up the oil and mining industries to Western capital and restructure its pile of public debt, one of the world’s largest. Many foreign companies had cited the poor state of the country’s infrastructure as an investment obstacle, a problem that will be exacerbated by the earthquakes. Witnesses: Residents of Caracas and nearby cities described scenes of terror and confusion as buildings collapsed, windows rattled, and homes lost power when two major earthquakes struck the country on Wednesday evening. Structural risks: The U.S. Geological Survey said that many people in affected areas live in structures made of brick masonry and adobe block construction that are not reinforced and therefore more vulnerable to earthquakes. International aid: Ms. Rodríguez said that rescuers from other countries would start arriving in Venezuela early Thursday, including teams from the United States, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico and Qatar. China, Brazil and several Caribbean nations have also offered support, she added. Regional impact: The government of Curaçao said that people on the Caribbean island nation, 40 miles off the Venezuelan coast, had also felt tremors. There were no immediate reports of serious damage there. Past disasters: The earthquakes were expected to be the worst humanitarian disaster in Venezuela in decades. Devastating landslides are estimated to have killed at least 15,000 in 1999 and the quakes drew comparisons to a 1967 earthquake that hit Caracas and left more than 200 people dead. Amy Graff, Isayen Herrera, Tibisay Romero and Francesca Regalado contributed reporting. The U.N.’s main humanitarian agency is directing incoming search and rescue personnel to arrive in Venezuela at Caracas’s “cleared” La Carlota air base, after earthquake damage forced the closure of the nearby Simón Bolívar International Airport. The agency said international teams should prioritize reaching La Guaira and Caracas, two of the hardest hit cities. President Delcy Rodríguez said in a phone call to state television that Venezuela was coordinating with the Inernational Monetary Fund on a $200 million fund to help with reconstruction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that he had spoken to President Delcy Rodríguez of Venezuela and that the United States was “deploying search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles.” Speaking to reporters while traveling in Bahrain, Rubio said other teams would follow, and that the United States was also providing Venezuela with overhead imagery. He added that the Defense Department would be running aid flights given that the airport in Caracas, the capital, was badly damaged. Details about the scale of the devastation across Venezuela are still emerging. The U.N.’s main humanitarian agency reports that at least 100 buildings have collapsed in La Guaira, a port city near the capital, overwhelming the local authorities there. Chevron said in a statement that its employees in Venezuela were accounted for and its business was operating there after the earthquakes. The company remained in Venezuela when others had pulled back during years of political and economic upheaval in the country. It is now looking to expand operations and increase investment after the United States deposed Nicolás Maduro, the former leader. The disaster is the latest major challenge for President Delcy Rodríguez.ImagePresident Delcy Rodríguez became leader after the U.S. military deposed and captured her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro. Credit...Federico Parra/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesPresident Delcy Rodríguez of Venezuela has only been in office for a few months, after Nicolás Maduro, the former leader whom she served under, was deposed and captured by the U.S. military. The deadly earthquakes that struck the country on Wednesday now force her to deal with a major disaster on top of her serious political challenges. After U.S. forces spirited Mr. Maduro out of the country in January to face drug trafficking charges in New York, Ms. Rodríguez found herself in a complex balancing act: She has had to juggle the demands of President Trump, having assumed power with Washington’s blessing, while trying to assert authority over Maduro loyalists and manage Venezuelans’ expectations of an economic bonanza. The Trump administration has demanded that Venezuela open its oil sector to foreign companies (especially those from the United States), work with U.S. security and intelligence services toward American objectives, sever ties with American adversaries and free political prisoners. Ms. Rodríguez has obliged on the economic and diplomatic requests while delaying political reforms. A key member of her inner circle, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, is a founder of the ruling party with deep ties to the Venezuelan military and pro-government armed groups. The Trump administration has accused him of “narco-terrorism” in the same indictment as Mr. Maduro. At a televised address after the quakes struck on Wednesday night, Ms. Rodríguez stood next to top officials, including Mr. Cabello, as she declared a state of emergency and detailed the initial reports of casualties and damage. “I ask that we act in national unity, with calm, and that we know that together we are going to overcome this tragedy,” she said. The earthquakes hammer Venezuela’s fragile infrastructure.ImageRubble of a residential building that collapsed during an earthquake in Caracas, on Wednesday.Credit...Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York TimesThe two major earthquakes that struck Venezuela late on Wednesday hammered the country’s fragile infrastructure, raising the prospects of a high death toll and threatening to further set back the country’s recovery after years of mismanagement and corruption. Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said in a televised address that the quakes had caused widespread disruption to public infrastructure, especially in the capital, Caracas, and the neighboring state of La Guaira, which she said was the hardest hit. She said that there had been power outages in Caracas and La Guaira, though the electricity grid continued to function in the rest of the country. Early Thursday, no lights were on in parts of Caracas, especially in the west of the city, and streets were flooded from burst water pipes. “Dozens of buildings have collapsed, and right now we are in very arduous rescue operations,” Ms. Rodríguez said, adding later: “This is a true tragedy.” Venezuela’s electrical grid has suffered chronic outages, including in 2019, when a national blackout was attributed to a failure at a hydropower plant caused by mismanagement and corruption. Over the past 10 years, water supplies have run dangerously low. Hospitals have also been failing and lack basic resources. The U.S. Geological Survey said that many people in the quake-affected region live in vulnerable structures constructed from bricks and adobe. Similar weaknesses existed in 1967, when an earthquake in Caracas killed hundreds of people and officials attributed the deaths to faulty construction.
Original Source: NYTimes
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