It's been a week since Venezuela's worst earthquake disaster in over a century.Thousands of people are feared dead, with the official death toll continuing to rise as hope fades of finding survivors in the rubble.The South American country now faces a humanitarian catastrophe — on top of the deep crises it was already dealing with before the quakes.Here's a look at some of the major developments since the evening when tragedy struck.Venezuela's rare double earthquakes happened within seconds of each other on June 24 at 6:04 p.m., measuring a magnitude 7.2 and 7.5.
Their epicenters were in Yaracuy state west of the capital of Caracas, and they were felt across Venezuela and even parts of neighboring countries.Venezuelan authorities say the hardest-hit area was La Guaira state.As of Tuesday, the number of people killed by the earthquakes had risen to 1,943 people, and more than 10,000 injured, according to Jorge Rodríguez, Venezuela's National Assembly president.
But tens of thousands of people are still unaccounted for.The death toll "will unavoidably and sadly keep on growing as the search-and-rescue operation continues, and as we are able to detail further assessment of the impacts of the quakes," Gianluca Rampolla, the U.N.humanitarian coordinator in Venezuela, said in a briefing on Monday.
Rampolla said the U.N.agreed with Venezuela's government to procure 10,000 body bags, adding, "we truly hope that actually the number is going to be smaller than that."In addition to casualties, the sheer number of people left homeless could be staggering.
A NASA analysis of satellite data estimated 58,870 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed by the earthquakes.Up to 6.8 million people could be affected by the disaster, requiring shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and other relief items, according to the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration.Public anger has grown at the response from Venezuela's U.S.-backed government, which critics say has been slo...