Scientists say recent earthquakes reveal problems with disaster preparedness and response in Venezuela

When Antonio Machado Allison helped with earthquake response efforts in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in 1967, he felt confident in the way the government mobilized its teams. When he arrived, Allison immediately described seeing a large number of state agencies on site organizing rescue and rescue services, implementing primary and emergency care, coordinating volunteers and distributing items such as food and vaccines.

However, nearly 60 years later, he is disappointed by what he witnessed after a pair of earthquakes rocked the country on June 24.

“One of the worst feelings one can have is frustration and seeing the physical devastation of a country due to a natural event but the devastation was so severe,” Allison said in Spanish. “We are a country vulnerable to these types of natural events, but the government is not doing enough to ensure the strength and resilience that the country should have.”

Allison, a first responder with the Venezuelan Red Cross Relief Brigade and an environmental scientist affiliated with Wesleyan University, said the biggest difference for him in the response after the recent earthquakes was the confidence in the government systems and infrastructure the country has in place to weather these seismic events, even with researchers and data available to take proper precautions.

The earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, struck the northern coast of Venezuela on June 24, causing the most damage near the cities of La Guaira and Caracas. By comparison, the 1967 earthquake that hit those same cities hard was recorded as a magnitude 6.5. As of July 6, the death toll reached 3,535 people, 16,740 people were injured, and 17,854 people were left without housing, according to the country’s official statistics.

Geologists said that although the earthquakes were strong, they were expected. They say the country was overdue for an earthquake because movement along active fault lines in Venezuela has a roughly 50- to 60-year cycle between major events.

The quakes occurred less than a minute apart and affected more than 200 kilometers from San Felipe east to Guatere, according to the Venezuelan Foundation Venezolana de Investigaciones Sismologicas (FUNVISIS) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). FUNVISIS, in collaboration with the USGS, has released new preliminary reports, data and images daily since the event.

La Guaira’s last major natural disaster was in 1999, when a mudslide killed nearly 19,000 people and toppled thousands of buildings, according to the USGS. Allison said that if seismic rules were not followed in the process of rebuilding the area, it may have contributed to the collapse of the buildings after the recent earthquakes. Other engineers and geologists pointed out that the country has all the policies in place — such as the COVENIN1756 code, implemented in 2019, which engineers consider a high-quality modern framework — to ensure seismic rules are met, but it is unclear whether they are being enforced.

Carlos Giraldo, a geologist and earthquake expert, worked at FUNVISIS for 8 years before moving to Spain. He grew up and lived in La Guaira for 20 years, where he studied the Pocono and San Sebastian faults hit by earthquakes. Besides these two very active faults, Venezuela is full of different soil conditions that could explain why some cities have worse impacts, he said.

For example, the city of Caracas, located in a valley, has softer rocks and sediments compared to mountainous areas where the rocks are harder. As a result, one must take into account how much soil may move and how this could amplify tremors in the event of an earthquake. When soil moves at speeds approaching 0.4 meters per square second, it can hamper a building’s earthquake resistance. Geologists like Geraldo develop seismic zoning maps to ensure that buildings constructed in vulnerable areas are placed in the safest locations possible and construction workers take precautions to be earthquake-resistant. In his opinion, buildings and towns in the country suffered from poor application of seismic zoning maps.

“We need to build good infrastructure and prepare for emergencies, and that is not the case in Venezuela,” Geraldo said. “Venezuela was not prepared for an emergency like this.”

Although seismologists won’t know the exact locations of the epicenters for another week, Geraldo said the breadth of devastation from east to west makes the epicenters almost irrelevant. With the quake’s epicenters expected farther east than where the impact was greatest, Juan Francisco Armenio, a Venezuelan geologist based in Colombia, said he and his colleagues believe there could be some seismic activity to the north that has not yet been accounted for.

Arminio said he was shocked by the severity of the damage to La Guaira and other cities. He said it would be difficult to predict the severity of future earthquakes or understand why certain cities would be more affected than others in the path of earthquakes, but he made some recommendations that could improve conditions.

He believes the country should have never stopped updating and maintaining proper disaster relief protocols. Arminio noted that after the government invested in earthquake studies and disaster relief protocols after the last major earthquake in 1967, the recent earthquakes should not have “taken the country by surprise as they did the last time.” He said that the government should have made an effort to maintain the systems it established for relief and rescue operations to be “an engine that drives any planning and prevention efforts forward.”

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Reports from citizens indicate that government officials, emergency responders and militias were not deployed until approximately two days after the June earthquakes. Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, denied any slow reaction at a news conference on July 2, saying: “We acted immediately.”

Beyond maintaining and investing in proper prevention and rescue protocols, Arminio said the government should be more conscious about where buildings are constructed. He recommended that the country have an authority that maintains responsibility for zoning and safety in each region. Allison agreed, saying the country has the money and personnel to do this, but a more coordinated effort is needed.

“The big problem in the chamber is the dysfunction of the government,” Armenio said.

Both Geraldo and Armenio said Venezuela’s seismologists need not only more data, but more support from their government so they can produce more accurate maps of seismic zones. With this knowledge, they can prevent future events from being as catastrophic as the June 24 quakes, even if they cannot predict how severe other quakes will be.

People look at burning buildings in Caracas, Venezuela, on June 30, following the two earthquakes. Credit: Jesus Vargas/Getty Images

While many independent rescue and aid organizations inside and outside Venezuela have contributed significantly to the rescue efforts and continue to do so, Armenio said he has noticed a lack of organization that he believes is necessary to create a comprehensive response.

Although disorganized, it was the citizens’ response that showed experts, especially Allison – despite feeling frustrated by the government’s disaster response – that Venezuelans “are still completely in solidarity.”

In the first hours following the disaster, citizens were seen pulling their neighbors and relatives from under the rubble and working with foreign relief teams sent to the country to find the missing. Displaced and migrant Venezuelan communities in the United States have also organized collection centers to ship donations to La Guaira, collecting everything from batteries and face masks to sanitary pads and new clothes.

“They are flexible and can organize and be present despite the absence of the state,” Allison said. “However, we cannot hide the responsibility of the state at this time; the state must act because this is its duty. When citizens take on these tasks, something is wrong. We must not get used to it.”

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