A devastating double earthquake hits Venezuela. Buildings collapse in Caracas and La Guaira, Delcy Rodriguez declares a state of emergency.
The earth beneath the coastal cliff shook first with a deep jolt and then with a roar that rent the air, transforming the night into a fragment of dramatic film. “Everything collapsed, it looked like a horror film,” says an eyewitness as rescuers try to make their way through the fine dust that envelops the streets. Venezuela wakes up wounded by the most powerful earthquake to hit the country in the last 126 years, a devastating seismic sequence that folded the capital and the coastal area.
The double seismic front
The seismographs of the United States Geological Survey (Usgs) have recorded an impressive progression. A first shock of magnitude 7.2 was followed, just 39 seconds later, by a second and even more violent seismic event of magnitude 7.5. The epicenter of this second and destructive earthquake was located 23 kilometers south-east of Yumarea coastal town of about 20 thousand inhabitants located about 300 kilometers west of Caracasnot far from the town of Moron.
The violence of the earthquake, which broke out near the coast, pushed the authorities to issue a tsunami warning for anomalous waves in the Caribbean, with particular reference to Puerto Rico and at Virgin Islandswhile the shock wave was clearly felt in much of the national territory and even in the neighboring regions of neighboring Colombia.
The emergency and the collapses in the capital
The provisional budget provided by the institutions describes a scenario of profound crisis. The interim president, Delcy Rodriguezofficially proclaimed a national state of emergency, speaking openly about a real tragedy: confirmed data records at least 32 deaths and over 700 hospitalized injuries. The hardest hit state is the coastal state of La Guairaformally declared a “disaster zone”.
TO Caracas we continue to dig incessantly among the rubble of the collapsed buildings, while the stones and fragments of the walls projected into the air testify to the force of the impact. In the municipality of Chacaoparticularly in the neighborhood of Los Palos Grandesthe collapse of at least two buildings along Primera Avenida was recorded; in this area the rescue teams have so far managed to extract 18 people alive, although the first 4 victims have been confirmed within the city perimeter. In the municipality of Barutaabout twenty kilometers from the center of the capital, the mayor Darwin González confirmed three deaths linked to the collapse of two structures in the locality of Las Minaswhile a short distance away, in the municipality of Los Saliasthe first citizen Edgar Laya reported one additional death.
Affected infrastructures and international aid
The structural damage did not spare the crucial hubs of national transport and connections, recording serious damage and critical issues also at the international airport of Maiquetíawhere the authorities started immediate inspections to assess the integrity of the runways and terminals. The aid machine was activated immediately to deal with the more than twenty seismic aftershocks that continue to frighten the population: President Rodriguez, in launching an appeal for unity and calm to help save human lives, expressed formal thanks to the foreign governments who mobilized to send recovery and rescue teams, expressly citing the support offered by the president Trump.
On the diplomatic front, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajaniconfirmed that there are no victims or compatriots involved among the Italian citizens regularly registered on the institutional platform Viaggiare Sicuri. The last earthquake of comparable intensity on Venezuelan soil dates back to 2018, when a 7.3 magnitude shock affected the state of Sucre, but the energy released in these hours takes the country’s historical memory back over a century.
