Rescue teams in Venezuela race to rescue a security guard trapped under a building that collapsed during earthquakes

Nearly a week after two successive earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, international rescue teams, including American rescue teams, are still working around the clock to rescue people trapped under the rubble — like 44-year-old security guard Hernan Gil Flores.

Gil Flores remained trapped under a partially collapsed 10-story building in La Guaira for six days.

“It’s a very complex rescue,” Manny Sampang, a task force commander from the Los Angeles County Fire Department who is in Venezuela to assist in the rescue effort, told CBS News. “I have several buildings leaning against that one and we’re trying to save it from them.”

Rescuers believe Gil Flores is still inside the security pod of the underground parking garage. Rescue teams are moving cautiously for fear of parts of the building collapsing again.

His wife, Josepimar Gonzalez, told CBS News that the rescue team had made contact with her husband. She said he was unharmed and they were able to get him water.

The confirmed death toll from the magnitude 7.5 and 7.2 quakes, which struck each other a minute apart after 6 p.m. local time on June 24, stood at more than 1,900 as of Tuesday. Tens of thousands are still missing, according to the United Nations.

Rescuers have found small miracles amid the rubble, including the rescue of an 18-day-old baby, who was pulled with his mother from a collapsed high-rise building after being trapped for 32 hours. In another case, a mother and her 9-month-old child were pulled from the rubble of a collapsed building with “only minor injuries,” Virginia Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 said at the time.

Venezuelan officials say about 6,400 people have been rescued so far.

NASA satellite data estimates that nearly 59,000 buildings were damaged or completely collapsed across the affected area. The United Nations says that 1.8 million people, about 700,000 of them children, are in need of humanitarian aid.

The worst of the devastation is concentrated in La Guaira, on the coast of Venezuela. The devastation forced many residents, such as Mariana Hernandez, to flee inland to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in hopes of finding shelter.

Hernandez told CBS News her home was destroyed and she had nothing left. Now she, her mother and three children live in tents.

“I’m trying to be strong because I have children and I don’t like them to see me cry,” she said. “What we are going through now is very difficult.”

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