June 29, 2026, 9:34 p.mJune 29, 2026, 9:34 p.m
A woman stands in front of posters of missing people in Caracas.Image: keystone
The official death toll from the devastating double earthquake in Venezuela has risen to 1,719. As the President of the National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez announced, more than 5,000 people were injured. The number of deaths was previously 1,450.
According to the brother of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, 189 of a total of around 800 damaged buildings collapsed completely after the severe earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on Wednesday evening (local time). There have been more than 600 aftershocks since the quakes, including one of magnitude 4.2 on Monday that triggered alarms, Rodríguez said. The US Earthquake Observatory reported the magnitude of the tremor off the country’s coast as 4.6.
Rescue work continues
Even on the fifth day after the devastating earthquakes, the search and rescue forces are not giving up. But desperation is growing among the victims’ relatives, as they fear that they will not even get the bodies of their relatives back.
Emergency services from Venezuela and numerous other countries are searching under collapsed buildings for suspected tens of thousands of people who, according to a model calculation by the USGS, may have died. However, according to experts, the chance of finding people still alive after 72 hours is extremely low.
Two German search and rescue teams are also deployed in Venezuela – one from the Technical Relief Agency (THW) and one from the organization @fire. According to the Foreign Office in Berlin, there is still no evidence of German victims. (sda/dpa)