The death toll in Venezuela’s twin earthquake disaster reached 1,430 on Saturday, and millions more were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs as the first US aid flights trickled into Caracas.
Facing public outrage at the response by local officials, US-backed interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez said the country was “not alone.”
The United States said one runway at Simon Bolivar International Airport was now functioning and that C-17 US military planes were landing there, while a naval ship had arrived off the coast.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search-and-rescue teams from at least 17 countries were being mobilised to help find survivors.
But the search for survivors saw desperate attempts by local residents to claw away rubble from apartment buildings that collapsed in Wednesday’s double-quakes. Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters are the key, narrow window for finding the living.
There was joy in the hardest-hit coastal area of La Guaira, north of Caracas, when locals pulled an infant alive out of the wreckage on Friday, some 32 hours after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors.
In one social media video, a man welled up in tears as he held the baby in his arms.
The United Nations’ migration agency said it had examined available population and damage data and had determined that “up to 6.76 million people could be affected,” and would “require emergency shelter, safe water, sanitation and hygiene services, healthcare, protection support and essential relief items.”
National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez on Saturday reported 1,430 dead and 3,238 people injured, while the UN estimated $6.7 billion in physical damage — equivalent to 6% of Venezuela’s GDP.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher on Friday told AFP the death toll could continue to soar, adding that more than 50,000 people were missing.
