Before the earthquakes in Venezuela, engineers were concerned that buildings might collapse

CARACAS, VENEZUELA — For years, engineers analyzing Venezuela’s building patterns have expressed a major concern: that the unstable mix of soft subsoil and tall concrete structures — many of which lack adequate seismic reinforcement — could lead to catastrophic destruction when a major earthquake strikes.

That doomsday scenario played out in devastating fashion on Wednesday, when two massive earthquakes in a row destroyed or collapsed dozens of buildings, killing at least 1,430 people, injuring more than 3,200, and spurring a desperate search for survivors buried in the rubble. Hundreds are still missing.

“The danger was known,” said Eduardo Nunez Castellanos, a Venezuelan structural engineer who is an associate professor and head of the civil engineering department at the Catholic University of the Holy Conception in Chile.

The two earthquakes caused massive destruction that extended from the capital, Caracas, to the coast and other places. The death toll is on track to be the deadliest in Venezuela in more than a century, surpassing the estimated 1,600 body toll in the 1929 Kumana earthquake and 6.7-magnitude tsunami.

Michael Schmitz, a professor of geophysics at Simón Bolívar University and the Central University of Venezuela, said he fears the number of victims could reach 50,000 people. This is the midpoint of the most likely range estimated by the USGS, which estimates there is a 44% chance the death toll could reach 10,000 to 100,000.

It is still too early to draw final conclusions about why the damage and death toll are so high. But Nunez said initial images show collapsed buildings “in some cases higher than 15 floors, with major construction defects and poor supervision during the construction phase.”

One possible contributing factor: a focus on profit rather than safety.

Nunez said the widespread damage likely reflects the construction of buildings “adapted to the needs of investors rather than structures properly designed and built in accordance with earthquake code requirements.” “Unfortunately, this is a common problem in Latin America.”

Núñez co-authored a 2023 study published in the Journal of Buildings that examined a type of concrete building more than 20 stories tall and built to Venezuelan code minimum requirements. The study found that those buildings placed on soft soil were more than 80% likely to collapse when they shook violently in an earthquake.

“The situation may be more serious for buildings designed according to old codes,” Nunez said.

But outdated safety standards and an ethos of building cheaply are likely among various factors explaining why so many buildings across Venezuela collapsed in this week’s earthquakes, the largest to hit the country in more than 125 years.

Contributing factors include concrete buildings designed without taking into account local soft soil conditions, the use of some type of structural system in buildings taller than 10 stories that are vulnerable to earthquakes, and “most importantly, inadequate oversight during the construction process due to weak institutional supervision,” Nunez said.

“Such institutional control existed in the past, but has deteriorated under the current ruling authorities,” Nunez said.

“The problem is the lack of control over construction standards,” Alejandro Juliano, former director of Venezuela’s National Institute for Earthquake Prevention, told Venezuelan radio Mile 20 the day after the quakes struck. “It is essential that earthquake-resistant building standards be respected.”

The fact that the country had not witnessed an earthquake resulting in large numbers of casualties for more than a quarter of a century was no excuse.

“One cannot be surprised by this event,” Giuliano said. “Venezuela has a history of large earthquakes.”

Most of the worst damage appears to have hit older concrete buildings, as well as stone buildings and informal construction on hillsides, said Ramon Mata Lemos, lead author of the 2023 study and an assistant professor specializing in seismic behavior at the University of San Sebastian in Chile.

Another disadvantage: buildings with soft floors, where the ground floor is more fragile than the upper floors, making it easier for them to fall in an earthquake.

“The most serious cases were related to complete or partial building collapses, often associated with soft floor mechanisms in buildings with open ground floors, as well as failure of slabs and balconies in multi-storey residential buildings,” Mata said, adding that roofs and slabs collapsed in public and residential areas, pavement was torn, masonry walls cracked and building facades fell.

Although it is not possible to predict the timing of earthquakes, it has long been known that Venezuela is vulnerable.

The country lies on the edge of a giant east-west rift that marks the border between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates.

However, international researchers have focused less on the southern edge of the Caribbean plate and the potential seismic consequences for Venezuela, a country with a population of 28 million, than on risks on the northern edge of the plate. Movement on the northern edge of the Caribbean plate caused a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010 in Haiti, killing 316,000 people, one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.

The last major earthquake to significantly shook Caracas was in 1967, when it measured 6.6 and killed 240 people. There was also a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in 2009, but the epicenter of the offshore quake was far from the city.

Other notable earthquakes occurred farther east. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 1997 in the Far East killed 81 people and struck the towns of Kumana and Caropano, according to the US Geological Survey.

The catastrophic earthquake of 1812, estimated at 7.7 magnitude, may have killed more than 15,000 people. Schmitz said that estimates indicate that a quarter of the population of Caracas died due to this earthquake.

Wednesday’s 7.5-magnitude quake — the second of the quakes to strike 39 seconds after the first began — is believed to have ruptured about 100 miles of fault, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The first fault to break is believed to be located in the Pocono system, about 25 miles offshore, Schmitz said. Schmitz said that the rupture started from the valley down to the sea, where the movement moved to the San Sebastian fault, which separates the Caribbean plate from the South American plate.

“This rupture appears to have been directed from the southwest to the northeast, then completely east,” Schmitz said, and stopped near the coastal city of La Guaira, north of Caracas. According to USGS tremor intensity maps, the quake sent seismic energy directly toward the international airport, which was severely damaged, and then into the coastal city.

“This probably caused the severe damage we suffered in La Guaira, where up to 100 buildings may have collapsed,” Schmitz said.

Old buildings are particularly at risk.

He added that buildings constructed before the early 1980s, especially those built before the 1967 earthquake, “do not have a great deal of earthquake-resistant engineering.”

However, many questions remain as to why La Guerra was hit so hard. Feliciano de Santis, president of the Venezuelan Geological Society, said La Guaira would be of interest to scientists “because the fact that a lot of buildings collapsed in that area is really abnormal.”

Factors include “old buildings that do not meet modern seismic standards, as well as hidden defects or structural weaknesses,” DeSantis said.

Another issue likely to receive attention is the construction of buildings – from low-income housing to luxury projects – with cheap materials and without proper permits. Lack of building maintenance, water leakage, structural overload, corruption regarding issuing permits, as well as the general chaotic state of many governments may also play a role.

Venezuela has been experiencing economic and political turmoil for more than a decade. However, providing cheap housing for Venezuela’s poor and working class – the ruling party’s long-standing support base – has remained a core tenet of more than a quarter-century of socialist rule.

Some of the collapsed buildings were built through government programs in La Guaira, and “we always had some doubts about the reliability of the structures,” Schmitz said.

First responders gather at a damaged building in the Los Palos Grandes area of ​​Caracas, Venezuela, after powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela and other areas in the Caribbean on Wednesday.

(Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)

Schmitz conducted a study, published in 2020, to help map areas around Caracas to prioritize which buildings should be modernized and upgraded. Neighborhoods that suffered significant damage would have been high priority areas.

Installing earthquake protection has not been a priority for a government in economic freefall.

Schmitz suggested conducting a similar seismic study of the La Guaira area. “I’ve been asking for funding for about six or seven years, but I haven’t been able to get it,” Schmitz said.

Lin reported from San Francisco and McDonnell from Mexico City. Mogollon, a special correspondent, reported from Caracas.

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