Earthquake in Venezuela LIVE: 235 dead, 4,300 injured, collapsed buildings and scenes of panic

“It is also good to remember that in the public system we have treated more than 4,300 injured people at seven o’clock tonight (…) and we have received around 235 patients who arrive without vital signs or die upon arrival at our health establishments”said the Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, on the state channel Venezolana de Televisión.

Alvarado indicated that the “most important number of injured and deceased is in the state of La Guaira”, neighboring Caracas and where the Simón Bolívar International Airport of Maiquetía is located, the main airport in the country, which was temporarily closed due to the damage it suffered as a result of the earthquakes.

Earlier, the president Delcy Rodriguez early confirmed that La Guaira, a coastal state in the north of the country and neighbor to Caracas, is the state most affected by the earthquakes, and indicated that it has been declared “natural disaster zone due to the number of buildings that collapsed,” whose amount was not immediately specified.

Likewise, he reported that A fund of 200 million dollars has been created for the reconstruction of the affected areas, where in the early hours of this Thursday the search for survivors in the rubble continues.

“I would like to announce the creation of an initial fund of 200 million dollars with resources that we have in the International Monetary Fund, which will allow us to rebuild infrastructure, hospitals, which will allow us to build homes for those who lost their homes.” detailed the Venezuelan leader.

The two strong earthquakes occurred around 6:05 p.m. local time on Wednesday (22:05 GMT) with the most powerful, measuring 7.5, occurring just 39 seconds after the first, measuring 7.2.reported the official US tsunami warning system, which explained that they formed a phenomenon called a “seismic doublet” and later canceled the tsunami warning for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Both had their epicenter less than 30 kilometers southeast of the city of Yumare, in the state of Yaracuy – whose capital is San Felipe -, according to the US Geological Survey.which measures seismic activity in the world. Caracas is about 300 kilometers east of Yumare, where the earthquakes were also felt.

The president of the USA, Donald Trump offered help to Venezuela in a comment on his network, Truth Social, and anticipated that the first reports about its consequences “are not good” and that “they have left a devastating number of deaths.”

“We are currently declaring a state of emergencyas contemplated by our Constitution”, Indian Delcy Rodriguez in a first speech on VTV, before reporting the number of victims, accompanied by the President of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, and the Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello.

He also indicated that the country’s entire public and private health network has been activated and announced that there will be no classes “in the following days” of this week, as well as the suspension of all activities that are not essential services.

The president pointed out that there were building collapses in several areas of Caracas, as well as impacts in the states of Miranda, La Guaira, Falcón and Carabobo.and reported that the Maiquetía International Airport, which serves Caracas, was closed after suffering serious damage to its infrastructure, without specifying what damage.

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Before Rodríguez offered the first report of deaths and injuries, The mayor of the Caracas municipality of Chacao, Gustavo Duque, warned of possible deaths in his jurisdiction.

“We are focused on trying to rescue as many residents as possible.”the official told journalists in the midst of the rescue efforts of residents of two collapsed buildings, describing the situation as “very hard” for his municipality, in the metropolitan area of ​​Caracas.

For its part, the US Geological Survey estimated that there is about 40% of probability that the earthquakes have caused between 10,000 and 100,000 deathsprojection calculated from the intensity of the movement, the exposed population and the vulnerability of the buildings in the affected area.

“It was incredible, I don’t even know how long it lasted. I was on the top floor.”

There were scenes of panic in a busy shopping center in the Altamira neighborhood in the Venezuelan capital, an AFP journalist confirmed. The floor began to shake, shelves in the stores fell and people ran en masse towards the street.

“It was incredible, I don’t even know how long it lasted. I was on the top floor (from the shopping center). Quite a few things fell from some businesses. We left through the emergency stairs, that’s where they took us out,” Heidi Romero, a 42-year-old shopkeeper, told AFP.

“The stairs fell apart, the entire wall cracked. Things fell from the ceiling. It was horrible”said Odalis Escalona, ​​54 years old and who works in a bank.

Some places were left without electricity. Dozens of people who left buildings in Caracas waited in the street before returning to their offices and homes.

To Colombia

Carmen Guédez, 69, was in bed in a sister’s room when she started shaking.

“It was increasing in intensity,” this administrator who lives in a middle-class neighborhood located in the mountains of Caracas told AFP. “I started to see how the windows started moving and then everything shook.”

“My sister, a neighbor and I stayed praying, hugging there. We couldn’t go out. The neighbors are still in the street”he added.

Venezuela is frequently shaken by tremors. The strongest earthquakes in recent times were those in Cariaco (northeast) in 1997 and that in Caracas in 1967.

The last similar earthquake that took place in Venezuela It was in 2018, with a magnitude of 7.3 in the state of Sucre and affected at least ten countries in the region, including Brazil, Guyana and several Caribbean islands.

Wednesday’s earthquake was felt even in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, where lamps swayed, alarms sounded and some residents evacuated buildings as a precaution, according to AFP journalists.

Colombia’s risk management entity initially indicated that there was no emergency report and ruled out a tsunami warning.