The death toll from last week’s powerful twin earthquakes in Venezuela continues to rise as the search for survivors grows more desperate. As fewer people are being pulled from collapsed buildings, many are growing frustrated, saying help is too slow.
National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez says the confirmed death toll has reached 1,719, with more than 5,000 injured and nearly 16,000 displaced. Among the dead are three Americans, according to U.S. officials, and 12 more Americans remain missing.
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Venezuela’s latest government tally shows nearly 200 buildings completely flattened and several hundred more severely damaged. Experts told Reuters the disaster was likely made worse by years of poor building-code enforcement, weak licensing practices and infrastructure neglect.
United Nations’ response
As crews continue to excavate more collapsed buildings, the United Nations coordinator in Venezuela, Gianluca Rampolla Del Tindaro, says the organization is preparing for the death toll to rise significantly.
“At least 2,500 structures are affected, most of which fully collapsed,” he said. “So, we are definitely looking at a number that is higher than the one already reported. I can give you an approximate indicator. We are procuring, and this is something that has been agreed with the authorities here, 10,000 body bags.”
Conditions still aren’t safe for search and rescue teams. About 500 aftershocks have been recorded since the first two earthquakes last Wednesday, including a magnitude 5.2 tremor in the early hours of Monday morning, according to the U.N.
A tropical wave is also threatening to bring heavy rains on Tuesday.
Deported Venezuelans missing
Meanwhile, relatives of more than 100 Venezuelans deported by the U.S. government just hours before the quakes are searching for their loved ones after the hotel they were staying in collapsed. The hotel was located in the hardest-hit state of La Guaira.
Officials say some of the 146 deportees, including 19 women and 7 children, made it out, but many remain trapped under the rubble.
Some relatives of those missing, like Luis Armando Dasilva, whose sister was among the group, say they’re not getting any answers from local officials.
“They are not giving us answers about where she is. If she is there at a hospital or at the morgue. We have already checked all of that and we haven’t found her,” Dasilva told CNN.
José Gregorio Rincón Ávila, the grandfather of one of the deportees, pleaded, “We have been waiting many days. We already know those bodies have been there for several days since Wednesday, but at least let us take our loved ones home.”
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