Search-and-rescue crews in Venezuela pulled 33 people alive from collapsed buildings over the weekend after twin earthquakes devastated the country’s northern coast, but officials and aid workers warned Sunday that time was rapidly running out for nearly 50,000 still feared missing.The death toll stood at 1,430 as of late Saturday, according to The Associated Press.More than 3,000 have been injured and roughly the same number are living in shelters, according to Venezuelan authorities.The worst devastation is concentrated in coastal La Guaira state, where entire apartment blocks, hotels and public housing buildings pancaked after magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes struck in quick succession Wednesday.
Hundreds of aftershocks have continued to rattle damaged neighborhoods, complicating rescue work and keeping survivors outside in the heat.Among the 33 rescued were an infant removed alive from rubble by U.S.rescuers, an 11-year-old boy found by a Colombian team after a scanner detected him about 10 feet below the surface, and another 11-year-old rescued by Mexican crews in Caraballeda.AMERICAN RESCUE TEAMS PULL INFANT ALIVE FROM RUBBLE IN VENEZUELA DAYS AFTER DEVASTATING TWIN EARTHQUAKESU.S.
firefighters from Fairfax County, Virginia, sent by the State Department work to reach earthquake survivors trapped in the rubble in La Guaira, Venezuela on Sunday, June 28, 2026.(Matias Delacroix)"In these hours each life is hope for Venezuela," Acting President Delcy Rodríguez wrote on X after one of the rescues.Swiss rescue-team leader Sebastian Eugster told Reuters that the odds of finding survivors drop sharply after roughly 72 hours under rubble.
That mark passed Saturday evening."There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive," Eugster said.The missing toll remains highly uncertain.The government has spoken of hundreds missing or trapped, while some estimated just under 50,000 people as ...