![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/A-Tower-dangerous-teeters-on-its-supports-1783802851.jpg\")
A tower leans dangerously in La Guaira, Venezuela, after the June 24 earthquakes [Alasdair Brenard\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\nLa Guaira, Venezuela \u2013 The smell of death grows stronger as we climb to the top of a collapsed building on the seafront of Venezuela\u2019s La Guaira, a state that has been decimated by back-to-back earthquakes in June.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi and I have flown in with the Qatar International Search and Rescue Group to document the fallout from this devastating natural disaster.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
The fetid smell hangs heavily as the Qatari team, alongside the Syrian White Helmets, attempt to separate a body from a tangle of concrete and tiles, their toil made harder by the intense midday sun.<\/p>\n
As the buried person is unearthed, stale waves of decay emanate outward, and despite my face mask, I\u2019m forced to suppress a gag and the urgent need to turn away.<\/p>\n
Since the earthquakes struck on June 24, the death toll has been steadily climbing, currently standing at more than 4,300.<\/p>\n
As we travelled along the coast of La Guaira to the city of Catia La Mar, that number felt low.<\/p>\n
Our car picked its way slowly around the debris littering the road. All around us, the surrounding buildings are in unrecognisable states.<\/p>\n
There are pancaked low-rise houses where roofs now sit directly on top of their ground floors. Taller buildings have collapsed on their sides like slain giants. One large housing complex had its exterior stripped away, displaying the domestic settings once hidden inside. It teetered perilously on buckled columns.<\/p>\n
A tower leans dangerously in La Guaira, Venezuela, after the June 24 earthquakes [Alasdair Brenard\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
The United Nations has estimated that 50,000 Venezuelans are missing in the wastelands of rubble.<\/p>\n
Janet Viana, a 72-year-old resident who survived the quakes, is hoping to recover her son. When I met her, she was gazing up at a tower atop a hill by the coast. Its walls had collapsed, and twisted metal, encased in chunks of concrete, had spilt out of its sides.<\/p>\n
Viana told us that the government hasn\u2019t supplied any assistance or heavy machinery to help recover the bodies inside, including her son. The government informed residents that the building would be demolished in a few days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope I can get my son\u2019s body back before they tear it all down,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s all I hope for. What else can we hope for when there\u2019s been no response?\u201d<\/p>\n
While the earthquakes have prompted a public backlash against Venezuela\u2019s socialist-run government, supporters have pointed to efforts officials have taken to address the crisis.<\/p>\n
The Venezuelan military has secured a number of sites in La Guaira, and the government set up an aid station, offering not only food and water, but also medical supplies and hardware, such as helmets, spades, saws, etc.<\/p>\n
The governor of La Guaira, Jose Alejandro Teran, told us that the government\u2019s response to the earthquakes was immediate and that workers were responsible for rescuing more than 6,000 people from the ruins.<\/p>\n
![\"Janet](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Janet-Viana1-1783802857.jpg\")
Janet Viana is hoping to recover the body of her son from the wreckage of Venezuela\u2019s earthquakes [Alasdair Brenard\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
But many Venezuelans told us they had to take rescue efforts into their own hands, without the help of the government.<\/p>\n
When we met 30-year-old Javier Villegas, he was working his way in and out of a building that is leaning as though it could come crashing down at any moment.<\/p>\n
He said there are about 38 bodies trapped inside, but that the government \u201cwon\u2019t send anyone in because they will be at risk\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I know they will be at risk, but there are people still in there, and I just don\u2019t understand the humanity of this government,\u201d he said, adding that he has been searching for his aunt every day since the earthquake struck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t lost hope that she will be rescued alive. It\u2019s been nine days now, and we still haven\u2019t heard anything,\u201d he said. \u201cAll we see is decay, but we\u2019re still fighting to get our loved ones out.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Javier](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Javier-Villegas-1783802853.jpg\")
Javier Villegas stands in a hard hat outside a dangerously unstable building in La Guaira, Venezuela [Alasdair Brenard\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n
Even though Villegas and Viana have not given up hope, they know time is running out. Soon, the heavy machinery will arrive, and the buildings will be crushed together and cleared away, along with all the furniture, photos and loved ones still stuck inside.<\/p>\n
As the days passed and our reporting team continued to traverse the destruction, more bodies were discovered. The use of quicklime had become ubiquitous to mask the smell and delay putrefaction.<\/p>\n
One day, we noticed that digging and excavation work had been paused at a site to allow for the recovery of a woman who died beneath the rubble.<\/p>\n
I avoided looking directly at her as she was lifted from the site, the viewfinder of my camera acting as a physical barrier between me and what was unfolding.<\/p>\n
Her body was unrecognisable, but the discovery of a necklace was used to ascertain her identity.<\/p>\n
Moments later, two serious-looking men in black approached the camera crew and me. Alex, a producer on our team, said they might be police as he translated their demand to view the footage on my camera.<\/p>\n
We calmly assured them that Al Jazeera has a clear policy to never broadcast human remains. One of the men turned to me and looked directly in my eyes before forcing out four words in English: \u201cShe is my mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was his wish to protect his mother\u2019s dignity and avoid her death being sensationalised in the media.<\/p>\n
In that moment, I needed to stop, overcome by the scale of the tragedy. I needed to get away. But for the residents of La Guaira state, they continue to face the horror of this new reality every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"La Guaira, Venezuela \u2013 The smell of death grows stronger as we climb to the top of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,43179,75,1379,3786,137,36088,2186,44,128,22474],"class_list":["post-795522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-earthquakes","tag-environment","tag-features","tag-government","tag-health","tag-humanitarian-crises","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-science","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}