Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez last night categorically rejected accusations that her government reacted too slowly after two devastating earthquakes on the country's northern coast that killed more than 2,000 people, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
“This was a natural disaster of a scale that we never imagined, even though we knew that a seismic event could happen in our country“, Rodriguez said at his first news conference since taking power after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro by the United States in January. “We didn't wait one, two or three days. "We acted immediately," she stressed.
Rodriguez said the government had declared a state of emergency to activate civil protection and emergency protocols within hours of the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes last Wednesday.
She added that almost all local officials in La Guaira - the coastal state hardest hit - had died under the rubble of buildings.
She said the latest figures put the death toll at 2,595, with search and rescue efforts still ongoing.
"We may still find people alive," she told a room filled with dozens of foreign journalists.
Rodriguez did not specify the number of missing. According to unofficial but widely used online lists, they had fallen to around 38,500 by Thursday evening, after peaking at nearly 60,000 in the first days after the quakes.
State television regularly broadcast Rodriguez's meetings with the army and security forces, while military and police patrols roamed the main streets of La Guaira, in places regulating traffic.
However, the rescue effort has been led mainly by civilians, many of them volunteers.
Tremor victims spent days trying to pull out their loved ones with their bare hands and improvised tools, aided by firefighters, civil defense workers, thousands of foreign rescue workers, medical students and nurses, as well as civilians working as teachers and veterinarians, and in some cases, soldiers.
Soldiers who worked alongside civilians for days in the six collapsed towers of a large housing complex in La Guaira, told Reuters they had volunteered to help with the rescue efforts there.
Many rescuers have criticized the lack of heavy equipment needed to clear the massive concrete rubble.