{"id":519456,"date":"2026-06-26T12:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519456\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T12:28:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:28:23","slug":"thousands-missing-235-dead-after-venezuela-earthquakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519456\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands missing, 235 dead after Venezuela earthquakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rescuers worked to save hundreds of people trapped in rubble and find thousands more missing after two of the biggest earthquakes in Latin \u2060America’s modern history smashed areas in and around the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.<\/p>\n

The government said 235 dead had been taken to medical centres but did not give a total casualty estimate from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors that struck about 160km west of Caracas on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A website created to track missing people and shared by opposition leaders from the politically polarised country listed more than 49,600 people as unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

Nine Portuguese and three Spanish nationals were killed, the countries’ foreign ministries said.<\/p>\n

Spain’s foreign ministry said 99 Spanish citizens were unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

Portugal’s foreign ministry said 56 of its citizens were missing or otherwise unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

With foreign rescue teams arriving, firefighters, soldiers and distraught citizens combed through shattered buildings, some using bare hands and torches in places where power was down.<\/p>\n

“He’s under the slabs and there’s no machinery to get him out,” said Yamileth Jimenez of her 19-year-old son stuck in debris of their seven-storey apartment building in La Guaira city on the coast outside Caracas.<\/p>\n

Aerial footage of destruction across La Guaira after deadly earthquakes<\/p>\n

\n

Thousands of people are homeless in a nation already weakened by decades of economic and political turmoil.<\/p>\n

The government confirmed 250 buildings damaged or destroyed. At least eight hospitals, the Venezuelan Red Cross and the French embassy were among buildings reported badly damaged.<\/p>\n

Nearly 7 million people could be affected, said the UN’s migration body, which was supplying emergency shelter and other relief supplies.<\/p>\n

Watch: ‘The whole room was going sideways, up and down’ – Irish teacher describes earthquake<\/p>\n

\n

La Guaira, the coastal state adjoining Caracas and home to the nation’s main airport, was among the hardest-hit areas. Streams of volunteers headed \u200cdown the Caracas-La Guaira highway with water, food and medicine.<\/p>\n

“We lost everything,” said one man, who said he had lost both his home and business and was sleeping on the street with his wife and children.<\/p>\n

“We hope help arrives quickly.”<\/p>\n

Near the epicentre in Moron, a seaside town \u2060in Carabobo state, houses crumpled and residents had no water or electricity. Families salvaged what they could, including mattresses, televisions and washing machines.<\/p>\n

Reuters journalists saw members of a “colectivo” – government-allied motorcycle groups long accused of harassing opposition \u200csupporters – assisting rescue efforts.<\/p>\n

Nations around the world pledged support, even some that have opposed Venezuela during decades of international isolation, political repression and economic deterioration \u2060under the ruling Socialist Party.<\/p>\n

Venezuela’s interim \u200cPresident Delcy Rodriguez, who took over when the US captured former leader Nicolas Maduro in January, thanked both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their efforts.<\/p>\n

The US has eased sanctions to allow earthquake aid that would otherwise be prohibited.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump said the US was “ready, willing and able to help”.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would send rescue teams while the Pentagon would help with logistics and support Caracas’ damaged airport.<\/p>\n

\"A
\nA man carries a rescued dog across the rubble of a collapsed building in Caraballeda, La Guaira<\/p>\n

Ms Rodriguez posted footage of Mexican \u2060soldiers and sniffer dogs arriving at the international airport at La Guaira, which was open only to state and military flights. Other aid came in via airports in the cities of Maracay and Valencia.<\/p>\n

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher \u2060said the organisation was coordinating international rescue teams and “a massive collective effort” would be needed in a country where 8 million people required humanitarian assistance before the quake.<\/p>\n

“The first hours are critical to saving lives,” said Emergency Director for the UN’s Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Ciro Ugarte, adding that hospitals were treating scores of people with broken bones and burns.<\/p>\n

\"Two
\nThe earthquakes struck 160km west of Caracas<\/p>\n

SpaceX’s Starlink said it would provide free service until 25 July for new and existing customers in affected areas and was working to deploy terminals to the hardest-hit zones to help restore communications.<\/p>\n

In the OPEC member’s vital oil sector, foreign energy companies said their operations had not suffered major disruption and oil infrastructure appeared largely spared.<\/p>\n

\"People
\nPeople search for survivors while others try to salvage belongings in a collapsed building<\/p>\n

The Caracas Stock Exchange remained closed, turned into an aid collection centre.<\/p>\n

Until now, the deadliest quake in Venezuela’s modern historyhad been in 1967, killing 240 \u200cpeople.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rescuers worked to save hundreds of people trapped in rubble and find thousands more missing after two of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-519456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}