The death toll in the catastrophic consecutive earthquakes in Venezuela has officially has grown to at least 188 people, with more than 1,500 citizens injured, world agencies reported, citing the president of the National Assembly. Authorities and international experts are expressing serious concerns that the grim statistics will continue to worsen dramatically, as hundreds of families remain missing, buried under the rubble of collapsed apartment blocks. Geologists warn that in the darkest scenario, the number of victims could reach thousands.
The damage from the two devastating earthquakes with magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, which struck the northern coast just 39 seconds apart, turned parts of the country into a complete disaster zone.
Scale of destruction and transport collapse
The epicenter of the quakes was located in the state of Yaracuy, near the city of Morón, but the shock wave caused severe structural damage in the capital Caracas, as well as in the hard-hit coastal states of La Guaira, Carabobo, Aragua and Falcon.
- Collapsed buildings: In the eastern metropolitan area of Palos Grandes, several multi-story residential buildings collapsed completely. Witnesses described the scenes as a “horror movie”, shrouded in thick clouds of dust and smoke. Hundreds of buildings across the country have been compromised.
- Airports and transportation: Caracas's Maiquetia International Airport suffered serious internal damage and was immediately closed to civilian flights. Train and metro traffic in the capital has been completely stopped.
- Communications breakdown: According to data from the Global Seismic and Technology Monitoring, internet connectivity and telecommunications in the country fell sharply. The reason is the massive outage of power lines and critical infrastructure.
- Regional support: El Salvador prepared 50 tons of humanitarian aid, and the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Colombia mobilized their Red Cross structures for search operations.
Situation with Bulgarian citizens
The Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) issued an official statement that no Bulgarian citizens were injured or killed in the disaster in Venezuela. Our embassy in Brazil, which is responsible for the region, as well as the honorary consul of Bulgaria on the spot, have managed to establish contact with all our compatriots in the country (whose number is less than 10 people). All of them are safe, although some of them report serious material damage to their homes.