At a flattened apartment block known as Los Cocos in northern Venezuela, civilians toiled with little support to pull the living and the dead from the rubble. In neighboring Colombia, when residential towers in Cali collapsed, officials poured in to help.
In Venezuela, civilians led rescue efforts after two back-to-back quakes in late June, finding survivors and victims as confusion, lack of equipment and delayed orders stymied the official response. Families, neighbours and some local officials spent weeks digging through rubble with bare hands, buckets, and sticks, helped by international rescue teams and a small contingent of Venezuelan federal officials. Police forensic staff were in charge of body removal, using metal litters and specialized vehicles.
Venezuela’s twin 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes, which struck especially hard in coastal La Guaira, led to a national death count currently standing at 6,300 people. The Colombia quake, which had a similar magnitude and was felt in neighboring countries, killed at least 285 people, with some 380 still missing. In La Guaira, most buildings of a landmark 1,100-unit social housing block named after late President Hugo Chavez collapsed in the June quakes. Neighbors and volunteers who pulled some 20 people from the rubble in the first hours were quickly backed up by local firefighters and then joined by more than a dozen official entities, including police and navy rescuers and search and rescue officials from other cities.
“It will take many years to return a sense of stability to the two countries, particularly for the children,” said World Vision coordinator Mayerly Sanchez. “The emergency has barely begun.”
A month later, two cranes were operating along with other heavy machinery to remove rubble. Civil protection officials who had tunneled six stories into the rubble needed multiple body bags to contain decaying remains, which they removed with the help of soldiers.
An army sergeant whose unit was finding and removing bodies said some of the equipment was broken and they were approaching those still searching for family members to assess who needed help.
