“Don’t go, don’t leave me,” pleads Amir, a 16-year-old boy who has an entire building on his body after the 7.5 and 7.2 earthquakes in Venezuela.
He has been trapped for more than twelve hours in the remains of the Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi complex in Playa Grande.in the town of Catia La Marin the coastal state of La Guaira, but his face and part of his torso can be seen among the rubble.
LOOK: “La Guaira is a true tragedy and becomes a disaster zone,” says Delcy Rodríguez after earthquakes
That coastal state in the north of the country and neighboring Caracas is the most affected by the earthquakes, according to the president in charge, Delcy Rodríguez, who declared it a “natural disaster zone due to the number of buildings that collapsed.”
As far as Amir is, help has not yet arrived and the young man’s resistance is becoming less and less.
Residents observe one of the housing blocks damaged by the earthquakes, in the town of Catia La Mar, in the coastal state of La Guaira, Venezuela. (EFE/ Ronald Pena R.).
“I think I am disabled. Every time (the building) gets heavier,” This teenager, a high school student and music student, assures EFE.
He was with his father at the time the tremor started and he doesn’t know anything about him.
Playa Grande and a good part of La Guaira are almost without rescue teams. There are few firefighters and residents claim, at dawn this Thursday, that no one has come to help them.
Residents among the rubble of one of the housing blocks damaged by the earthquakes in the town of Catia La Mar, in the coastal state of La Guaira Venezuela. (EFE/ Ronald Pena R.).
/ Ronald Pena R.
Crying, residents search for relatives amid the rubble.
It is an essentially human team that, he affirms, has not yet received support from rescuers and even less from machinery that removes debris.
“Help” or “help” is the cry heard from the remains of collapsed buildings or partially supported on weak columns.
Residents walk through the rubble of buildings collapsed by earthquakes in the town of Catia La Mar, in the coastal state of La Guaira, Venezuela. (EFE/ Ronald Pena R.).
/ Ronald Pena R.
They are towers with a privileged view of the Caribbean Sea that today are experiencing a tragedy.
And among the sound of car alarms that mixes with the birds of dawn, someone shouts “help!”
A neighbor asks: “Where are you? What’s your name?”
The person answers: “floor 1”. It has been there for almost 12 hours since the two earthquakes occurred on Wednesday.
“Help me, please,” he shouts again. Next to him is the corpse of a woman.
Another group searches for someone named Jesus, but 200 meters back they try to find an 11-year-old girl in a housing complex named Hugo Chávez in honor of the president who died in 2013.
The little girl’s mother cries desperately while the people who are trying to take her tell her where Dana could be.
In a country that was not prepared to experience an earthquake of such magnitude, security officials and civilians are trying to find the best way to remove debris through improvised engineering.
The desperation is such that in another building a group of relatives of a woman named Eva, crying, say they are willing to move the rubble.
“Eva, Eva, Eva,” they shout insistently as they hug each other to give themselves strength.
Late in the morning, some helicopters are seen in the sky over a region known until 2019 as Vargas and where thousands of people died in 1999 amid floods and avalanches that still leave their mark.
