A drone view shows buildings destroyed by earthquakes, in La Guaira, Venezuela, June 26, 2026. Handout via REUTERS
The government said it had not given up on pulling people alive from the wreckage, but there were few rescues on the fifth day.
Here’s the latest.
The search for survivors of the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela was growing increasingly desperate in its fifth day on Monday, with hopes fading of finding more people alive under the rubble as another aftershock rattled the area.
The full scale of the destruction from Wednesday’s 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes is still emerging. The Venezuelan government on Monday raised the death toll to 1,719, with 5,034 injured and 15,866 displaced, but those figures are expected to keep rising.
A buzz of activity filled La Guaira, the devastated coastal city, as frantic rescue efforts continued on Monday afternoon. Police officers controlled the main avenues as trucks carried first responders, firefighters and volunteers past large tents where rescue workers from across the globe worked. The cracked facades of some buildings were being marked with bright-yellow stickers by international search and rescue crews. And small restaurants in the historic part of the city rushed to make repairs in an effort to open their doors to customers again.
The road from Caracas to La Guaira, which had been congested with vehicles over the past few days, obstructing access for rescue workers, was relatively clear of traffic on Monday. The Venezuelan government has urged citizens rushing to deliver donated supplies to stay off the roads because the traffic was hampering the transport of heavy machinery, medics and soldiers. Times reporters were able to reach La Guaira in about 30 minutes on Monday, compared to four hours over the weekend.
At the main public hospital in the devastated city of La Guaira, the injured have been transferred to hospitals in Caracas, according to hospital staff, the while bodies have been moved from the hospital morgue to the open yard of a state-run port in La Guaira, where authorities are continuing identification efforts.
Across Venezuela, the government has cataloguesd 855 buildings damaged, a figure that has risen daily, and 189 that suffered “total collapse,” Mr. Rodríguez said. Researchers in the United States, reviewing satellite images, esimated that more than 58,000 buildings were likely damaged.
Electricity has been restored to 90 percent of La Guaira, the hardest-hit part of the country, Mr. Rodriguez said. It was not clear if he meant the entire state of La Guaira, or just its capital city, which shares its name. The Venezuelan government is also creating two commissions, one to evaluate the damage to buildings and another oversee temporary shelter camps, he said. The government has already opened 15 “big” shelters, he said, including two in La Guaira.
the New York Times
