Venezuela earthquake: Anger grows as people rescue themselves and fear real death toll is much higher

Follow our coverage in Spanish

As Venezuelans in La Guaira continued to search through the rubble of collapsed buildings yesterday, a government excavator stood motionless next to a pile of concrete and bent rebar.

There is still a lot of work to be done nearly a week after two massive earthquakes destroyed much of this coastal city. Heavy machinery is a vital tool in the aftermath of the accident, but when CNN asked the excavator operator why it stopped working, he said there wasn’t any gasoline to put in it.

Venezuela is home to the world’s largest recorded oil reserves, but following one of its worst earthquakes in more than a century, many of its citizens have had to manually dig their friends and family out of the rubble due to fuel shortages. Their desperation comes as the Venezuelan government faces mounting criticism over its response to the crisis.

“People are angry,” said political analyst Carmen Beatriz Fernandez, director of consultancy DataStrategia. “What we are witnessing is that this tragedy is a reflection of another tragedy, which is the state’s capabilities being devoted solely to repression and propaganda. It has dismantled the state’s ability to provide basic needs.”

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said the crisis prompted her to return to Venezuela from exile in the United States, telling Fox News that she and Venezuelans “need to be together.”

Meanwhile, the government defended its earthquake response despite the “initial chaos,” with top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez promoting a new initiative “in which volunteers will be distributed according to established priorities.” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello told Venezuelans early on to trust their government.

“We ask our people, in the midst of this situation, to be able to organize ourselves in the municipalities, to be able to organize ourselves in all the structures – we have to know who is missing, where they have been, so that we can carry out rescue work more precisely,” Cabello said last Thursday.

Additional resources are urgently needed in La Guaira, one of the worst-affected areas in the country, where the smell of decomposition fills the dank air. CNN saw people using axes, shovels and their bare hands to dismantle collapsed high-rise apartment buildings.

“We wasted a lot of time trying to discover new tools to use in a specific activity, such as cutting steel,” Hasel Mendoza told CNN. The engineer came from Tampa to try to find her mother, sister, brother-in-law and nephew in the rubble of the nine-story apartment building, who had been sleeping on the floor since they arrived two nights earlier.

Mendoza said the search would have been very difficult without the proper tools. Mendoza said a civil defense team from neighboring Aragua state did not have any of the equipment needed to quickly dismantle the rubble. No drills, no sensors. Water donations from the government and elsewhere were helpful, but they were not enough.

The official death toll continues to rise, albeit slowly. On Tuesday, National Assembly President Jorge Ramírez – the acting president’s brother – announced that at least 1,943 had died, an increase of about 200 from the previous day.

But it is believed that the number of victims is much higher. The US Geological Survey estimates that there is a high probability that tens of thousands will die. UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela Gianluca Rampolla said on Monday that the Venezuelan government and the United Nations were purchasing 10,000 body bags in anticipation of more deaths.

When CNN passed by a makeshift morgue in the port of La Guaira, rows of boxes were stacked high on the docks.

Like many people camping outside their family homes in Venezuela, Mendoza refuses to believe they are gone until the last possible moment. “We have a little hope that my family is alive,” she said. “You’ll never know until you find the bodies.”

Her faith is not without precedent. Miraculous rescues have been captured on camera across Venezuela, long after the three-day “golden window” to find survivors. Jack Thorpe, an American volunteer with Resource Rescue International, told CNN that he had seen trapped people go into “survival mode”, somehow staying alive while waiting for rescue.

“We are looking for life and we are also looking for dead,” Thorpe said of his team, which traveled to Venezuela on Monday from North Carolina. “I imagine they’ll tell us at some point it’s a full recovery operation. I know we’re still finding people alive in these buildings, so I’m not ready to give up just yet.”

Davis Ramos has not cried since his daughters were killed in last Wednesday’s earthquakes. He sees no benefit. Crying will not help him dig through the rubble of the apartment building owned by his wife’s parents, where he and others spent days digging for their bodies.

“I can’t think about crying,” Ramos said. “Right now, even though my soul is breaking inside, I can’t think of crying, because tears won’t move a single stone. What I need is strength and will.”

Ramos’ daughters – Darling Antonella, seven, and Dulce Maria, two – were staying with their grandparents and great-grandparents, who also died in the quakes.

He was working in the city’s large port when the earthquake occurred. He rushed to the building within 30 minutes of the first earthquake. He’s been digging ever since.

“We are just asking for strength to get to where they are and give them comfort,” Ramos said. He is amazed at the help coming from across the country and abroad. “From the afternoon of the first day, I saw patrols, firefighters, rescue teams – international aid, people from other countries coming here with their bare hands, their own money.”

Ramos added that the state government brought generators to assist them in the search on the first day. They were initially able to use heavy machinery brought by others to dig, but those machines were moved elsewhere once rescuers determined there was no sign of life in the apartment building.

Ramos and other volunteers methodically sifted through the apartment’s rooms, finding personal items — his mother-in-law’s phone and a sewing table, for example, and one of his daughter’s beds — but no trace of his children, at least not yet. Ramos suspects they fled to the other side of the unit, where he couldn’t reach him.

“We made peace with it,” he said. “We’re just asking for the strength to reach them and give them proper comfort. That’s all we want.”

Issa Soares and Madalena Araujo reported from La Guaira, Venezuela. Gonzalo Zegarra reports.

What Are The Main Benefits Of Comparing Car Insurance Quotes Online

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 24, 2020, / Compare-autoinsurance.Org has launched a new blog post that presents the main benefits of comparing multiple car insurance quotes. For more info and free online quotes, please visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/the-advantages-of-comparing-prices-with-car-insurance-quotes-online/ The modern society has numerous technological advantages. One important advantage is the speed at which information is sent and received. With the help of the internet, the shopping habits of many persons have drastically changed. The car insurance industry hasn't remained untouched by these changes. On the internet, drivers can compare insurance prices and find out which sellers have the best offers. View photos The advantages of comparing online car insurance quotes are the following: Online quotes can be obtained from anywhere and at any time. Unlike physical insurance agencies, websites don't have a specific schedule and they are available at any time. Drivers that have busy working schedules, can compare quotes from anywhere and at any time, even at midnight. Multiple choices. Almost all insurance providers, no matter if they are well-known brands or just local insurers, have an online presence. Online quotes will allow policyholders the chance to discover multiple insurance companies and check their prices. Drivers are no longer required to get quotes from just a few known insurance companies. Also, local and regional insurers can provide lower insurance rates for the same services. Accurate insurance estimates. Online quotes can only be accurate if the customers provide accurate and real info about their car models and driving history. Lying about past driving incidents can make the price estimates to be lower, but when dealing with an insurance company lying to them is useless. Usually, insurance companies will do research about a potential customer before granting him coverage. Online quotes can be sorted easily. Although drivers are recommended to not choose a policy just based on its price, drivers can easily sort quotes by insurance price. Using brokerage websites will allow drivers to get quotes from multiple insurers, thus making the comparison faster and easier. For additional info, money-saving tips, and free car insurance quotes, visit https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ Compare-autoinsurance.Org is an online provider of life, home, health, and auto insurance quotes. This website is unique because it does not simply stick to one kind of insurance provider, but brings the clients the best deals from many different online insurance carriers. In this way, clients have access to offers from multiple carriers all in one place: this website. On this site, customers have access to quotes for insurance plans from various agencies, such as local or nationwide agencies, brand names insurance companies, etc. "Online quotes can easily help drivers obtain better car insurance deals. All they have to do is to complete an online form with accurate and real info, then compare prices", said Russell Rabichev, Marketing Director of Internet Marketing Company. CONTACT: Company Name: Internet Marketing CompanyPerson for contact Name: Gurgu CPhone Number: (818) 359-3898Email: [email protected]: https://compare-autoinsurance.Org/ SOURCE: Compare-autoinsurance.Org View source version on accesswire.Com:https://www.Accesswire.Com/595055/What-Are-The-Main-Benefits-Of-Comparing-Car-Insurance-Quotes-Online View photos