{"id":760182,"date":"2026-06-25T12:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/760182\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:34:09","slug":"pair-of-earthquakes-in-venezuela-kill-at-least-164-injure-nearly-1000-death-toll-expected-to-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/760182\/","title":{"rendered":"Pair of earthquakes in Venezuela kill at least 164, injure nearly 1,000; death toll expected to rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rescue teams rushed Thursday to areas hit hardest by a pair of powerful earthquakes that rocked Venezuela<\/a>, killing at least 164 people, injuring nearly 1,000 and trapping many under the rubble.<\/p>\n

Wednesday evening\u2019s 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century and could be felt throughout the region. The country\u2019s main airport was damaged and closed, while buildings were evacuated in places as far away as Brazil\u2019s Amazon, about 1,700 kilometres from Venezuela\u2019s capital, Caracas.<\/p>\n

Television broadcasts Thursday showed rescue workers using power tools to work their way into piles of rubble where buildings once stood. Panicked residents of the capital were sent pouring into the streets, and after the quakes many people walked among the debris searching for the missing among collapsed buildings and toppled electric poles.<\/p>\n

Footage on state TV showed three children, covered in dust but alive, pulled from the rubble in La Guaira state, which Rodr\u00edguez described as a \u201cdisaster zone\u201d and one of the areas hardest hit by the quakes because of the large number of collapsed buildings.<\/p>\n

Acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who gave the latest death toll early Thursday, said authorities were shifting rescue teams from other parts of the country to La Guaira, which sits north of Caracas on the coast. Officials were trying to make the most of the daylight hours to speed up efforts to rescue people believed to remain trapped under the rubble, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDozens of buildings have collapsed there … and we are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said.<\/p>\n

Video shared online appeared to show dozens of people, some lying on the ground and others on hospital beds, being treated outside a hospital in La Guaira.<\/p>\n

While Venezuela sits near multiple fault lines, its position straddling the South American and Caribbean plates makes strong earthquakes much less common than in other parts of Latin America.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez appealed to businesses to make heavy construction equipment available for rescue operations, adding that search and rescue teams certified by the United Nations were on their way to Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Caracas residents reeling from two strong quakes<\/p>\n

A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook Venezuela on Wednesday evening, collapsing buildings in the capital of Caracas. <\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

During the quakes, people ran from swaying buildings in Caracas, many visibly shocked when they turned back to see destroyed walls that left furniture visible from the street. Columns of dust rose in two typically busy neighbourhoods in the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started off gently and then gradually grew, and in the end, we all had to leave our houses, go outside and gather together,\u201d Caracas resident Hector Ricci said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2, hit west of Moron on the Caribbean coast, about 170 kilometres west of Caracas. It had a depth of 22 kilometres. Just a minute later, USGS reported a second 7.5 magnitude earthquake just a minute later, with a depth of 10 kilometres and an epicentre 16 kilometres southwest of Moron.<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello urged people to remain outside as aftershocks could further damage structures, and many people stayed on the streets for hours, some sitting on the ground hugging pets as dust gathered around them. In downtown Caracas, hundreds of people spent the night huddled around parks, parking lots and other open spaces. Authorities warned against returning to homes with structural damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were afraid the buildings would collapse on us,\u201d said Mar\u00eda Cristina D\u00edaz, a 41-year-old janitor. \u201cMy mother, my daughter and I were cold. We didn\u2019t sleep a wink; but I didn\u2019t want to spend the night alone at home after that terrible earthquake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awful. We cried, we screamed. Thankfully, we\u2019re alive,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz and her family rushed to Plaza Candelaria in downtown Caracas because it\u2019s one of the few open areas near her home.<\/p>\n

Parts of the capital lost power and cellphone coverage, and the earthquakes damaged and closed Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar International Airport, the country\u2019s main airport, Rodr\u00edguez said.<\/p>\n

In Caracas, subway services were suspended and natural gas shut off, she said. Classes will also be cancelled for several days, and the Ministry of Education said some school buildings would be used as shelters and donation centres.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning scores of people battled with lack of cellphone signal in parts of Venezuela as they took to social media to track down missing family members.<\/p>\n

Several governments offered assistance<\/p>\n

Footage posted by the Mayor of Baruta municipality, Darwin Gonz\u00e1lez, showed emergency workers carrying out people on stretchers after two powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez declared a state of emergency in an address to the nation late Wednesday. She said the government was creating a US$200-million reconstruction fund for hospitals and homes damaged by the earthquakes, and had instructed the economy and finance ministers to oversee the effort.<\/p>\n

Offers of help poured in from countries around the world.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is \u201cimmediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have a whole of government response,\u201d Rubio said Thursday in Bahrain. \u201cIt will be big. It will be fast. It will be effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s in charge of Venezuela after Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s capture? <\/a><\/p>\n

He added that one of the runways at Caracas\u2019 international airport was cracked in the earthquake, making landing aircraft there difficult.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez \u2013 who became acting president after an American military operation captured her predecessor, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and brought him to the U.S. to stand trial \u2013 thanked U.S. President Donald Trump. She said in an X post later that she spoke with Rubio by phone without sharing details. She also expressed thanks to the leaders of various nations who have sent messages of support and offers of help.<\/p>\n

Ecuador ordered the delivery of humanitarian aid, and Rodr\u00edguez said Qatar, Mexico and El Salvador had already sent rescue personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe send you all our solidarity and our prayers. Stay strong, Venezuela,\u201d El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, once diametrically opposed to Venezuela\u2019s government, wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescue teams rushed Thursday to areas hit hardest by a pair of powerful earthquakes that rocked Venezuela, killing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1397,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-760182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-appwebview","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}