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National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said the confirmed death toll from the earthquakes that hit Venezuela last week now stands at 1,719. Rodriguez reported that 5,034 people have been injured while 15,866 have been displaced from their homes and another 22,619 are classified as affected. The announcement came as search teams worked through debris in the hardest-hit areas with limited heavy machinery available.
The pair of quakes struck on June 24 with magnitudes of 7.5 and 7.2 according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey. La Guaira state sustained the most severe damage while buildings swayed in the capital Caracas. Venezuelan officials declared the worst-affected zones disaster areas as initial casualty counts from that Wednesday evening began far lower before climbing steadily in subsequent days.
Rescue operations have faced repeated setbacks from aftershocks that have continued to rattle the region. Responders have often resorted to digging by hand through collapsed structures in a race against time that has grown more difficult with each passing day since the initial strikes. Al Jazeera reported on June 29 that tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for in the disaster zone.
The death toll update from Rodriguez marked a sharp increase from earlier figures that stood at 1,430 on June 27 and around 900 two days before that. Reuters noted in its coverage that the quakes represented Venezuela’s most powerful in more than a century with the epicenter located west of Moron along the Caribbean coast. Damage assessments remain preliminary as teams focus first on locating survivors.
Venezuelan authorities have not released a full breakdown of the missing persons count though multiple outlets placed the number between 50,000 and 70,000 in the immediate aftermath. The United Nations highlighted the emergency scale in statements issued late last week without detailing specific international assistance figures at the time. Infrastructure losses including homes and commercial buildings have compounded challenges for the affected population in the northwest region.
