Venezuela Earthquake Death Toll Rises to 2,954 as Families Seek Bodies
The death toll from the Venezuela earthquake has risen to 2,954 as families in La Guaira focus on recovering and identifying the bodies of loved ones from the rubble while rescue efforts shift toward recovery. [3] Ten days after the June 24 disaster, attention has turned increasingly away from possible rescues of survivors to recovery of the bodies of loved ones. [1]
Rising Death Toll and Shift to Body Recovery
The earthquakes measured 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude and devastated a housing complex known as OPP 26 and 27 in La Guaira, the epicenter, which was built about 13 years ago under former President Hugo Chávez’s Housing Mission program. [1] Ten days after one of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters, attention is turning increasingly away from possible rescues of survivors to recovery of the bodies of loved ones. [1] The death toll from the Venezuela earthquake has risen to 2,954. [3] Where Oswall's body was recovered, hundreds of volunteers worked in mountains of rubble from the complex in La Guaira. [1]
Families Clamor to Stay With Their Dead
For Victor Colivert, only one thing matters now. He must stay with the body of his nephew Oswall, which was pulled out of the rubble of his residence that collapsed in the twin earthquakes. [1] Colivert lost his sister, Grecia, her husband, and her two children, Oswall and Greidy. [1] After fighting to recover his remains, Colivert fears the body will be lost in the chaos following the disaster. [1] "Even if I have to go to China, to wherever, but I’m not leaving him alone," said Colivert. [1] The body of 13-year-old Oswall had been taken out earlier and remained for hours in a black bag next to his family. [1] They stopped forensic experts from removing it for fear they would never find it again. [1] "I'm going with him," Colivert, 36, told AFP. [1] Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodríguez has given assurances that all bodies would be identified. [1] "No one is going to a mass grave," she said on Thursday. [1] She said forensic experts would take fingerprints and photographs of the deceased and create a file for each body brought to the morgue. [1] "I had a lot of hope for my family; I'm a Christian," says Miguel Ángel Colivert, Víctor's uncle. [1] But he admits he lost faith when his niece's body was found. [1] "My soul aches!" [1]
Intense Volunteer Efforts at the Rubble
Using drills and pliers, Mexican soldiers struggled Friday night to extract the body of 16-year-old Greidy, trapped under a beam. [1] A group of volunteers passes buckets of rubble from hand to hand in long lines. [1] Drills can be heard piercing the cement until someone shouts "Silence!" with a raised fist. [1] Everything stops for a few minutes. [1] "It's been exhausting, crazy," Roa says about the countless hours they've worked both to find survivors and to recover bodies and return them to their families. [2] Official figures indicate that nearly 6,500 people have been rescued, many by volunteer teams. [2] Volunteers and relatives of the victims rest under blankets tied to four poles driven into the rubble, which reeks of death. [1] A mud-stained Venezuelan flag, tied to a pole, flutters in the Caribbean breeze. [1]
Miraculous Survival Story of Pedro Cordido
Just when Pedro Cordido thought all was lost, he heard Erick Roa's voice. [2] Cordido's eyes can't help but radiate with gratitude when he speaks about the volunteer rescuers who pulled him from the ruins of the double earthquake. [2] He spent nearly 30 hours trapped in the fetal position after his building collapsed. [2] In seconds, the earth swallowed the 12-story structure, and he watched as Hernando, his adopted son, and Hernando's wife were sucked into a kind of dust devil, powerless to do anything to save them. [2] The darkness was total; there was no air. [2] He couldn't move in any direction, pinned with sharp fragments all around. [2] Then he heard Roa, who is one of a group of five volunteer rescuers who gathered in La Guaira to search for survivors after the violent 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that struck on June 24. [2] A woman alerted them that she had just heard screams. [2] It was Cordido. [2] The rescuers formed a human chain in the pitch black, using only a small flashlight. [2] Roa and his companions initially crawled and then cut a hole to reach the site. [2] "There wasn't a single ray of light coming through a crack in the rubble; despair threatened to overwhelm me," Cordido told AFP from his daughter's house in Caracas. [2] Roa, a former military nurse, spoke to him for four and a half hours during the rescue. [2] He tried to keep him awake, hoping he would stay alive. [2] It worked. [2] Cordido suffered lacerations and is being cared for by a neighbor who is a nurse and visits him daily. [2] On his index finger, Roa has a tattoo: "Faith in God." [2] Two years ago, he went through one of the hardest moments of his life; he attempted to take his own life, and an evangelical pastor intervened to stop him. [2] From then on, he says he understood that he had a purpose: to help others. [2] When the earthquake struck, Roa was resting at home in Caracas. [2] A nephew texted him to say his ex-girlfriend was missing in La Guaira. [2] He got on his motorcycle and set off to look for her. [2] She turned up safe and sound, but Roa decided to stay after seeing the magnitude of the tragedy. [2] He then met Enmanuel Andrade, Jose Luis Fonseca, Carlos Alexander Marval Balza and other rescuers working without sophisticated equipment. [2] Roa says he was "desperate" to help save Cordido. [2] "I always talked to him, telling him, 'Stay still, you're coming out with me,'" he recalls telling Cordido as they struggled to reach the spot where he was trapped. [2] Cordido says the phrase that gave him a second chance is etched in his mind: "Is anyone there?" [2] He shouted for help. [2] "With all his love, one of them told me, 'Pedro, I came from Caracas, and I came because I had to save you. God told me I had to save you. I love you,'" the survivor says, recalling Roa's words. [2] "How wonderful," Cordido recounts between sobs. [2] "Without any specialized equipment to move the rocks, they used their bare hands to remove them until they could pull me out." [2] After leaving the hospital where he spent several days stabilizing, Cordido shared a message of gratitude with the man he calls his angel. [2] "Brother, I truly love you. My God, your words when you found me, the way you acted... I truly have no words to thank you. There aren't any," he says in a WhatsApp voice message. [2] "I never thought I would be rescued, and you arrived like an angel, opened the door, and said, 'I'm here to help you...' I love you, brother. I will love you forever." [2]
Scenes of Grief and Devastation in La Guaira
Activity is intense at the ruins of this complex, built about 13 years ago as part of the Housing Mission program, promoted by the late former president Chávez. [1] With a Bible in his hand, a Mexican priest offers prayers where the bodies lie. [1] "This is a horror movie. We didn’t have to survive a war, but we could not against nature," says Celida Sequera, a 43-year-old volunteer with her face and clothes covered in dirt. [1] The housewife was accompanying a friend who lost everything. [1] His wife and three children -- ages six, 10, and 12 -- were lying in bed when a wall collapsed on them during last week’s 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes. [1] "Since everything was devastated, they couldn't be found, but we finally located them today," she said. [1] The rescue team pulled on a rope to haul a volunteer out of the hole where they plan to extract the bodies of the woman and her children. [1] A blackened mattress, a twisted bicycle, a crushed sofa and toys protrude between two stacked concrete slabs. [1] Seeing all this, a woman kneels and cries out between sobs. [1] "My soul aches!" [1]
What to watch next: Volunteers continue working in dangerous conditions using basic tools like drills, pliers, and human chains to extract bodies amid the stench of death, with families like Victor Colivert’s refusing to leave recovered bodies unattended.
