BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 The first thing Jos\u00e9 Parra did after hearing about the earthquakes was grab his phone.<\/p>\n
“I started looking for information and trying to communicate with my family, but I couldn’t reach my brothers in Venezuela,” said Parra, known in the community as DJ Chamo King.<\/p>\n
Hours later, he finally got some good news through relatives in Texas. His immediate family is safe.<\/p>\n
However, he says many relatives are scattered across the country, and he’s still waiting to hear from others.<\/p>\n
“My brothers have sent me some videos. They tell me the situation is chaotic,” Parra said.<\/p>\n
Venezuela\u2019s health minister told state media that at least 235 people have been killed and more than 4,300 others injured after two powerful earthquakes struck the country Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Parra says the damage comes as Venezuela was already facing major economic and humanitarian challenges.<\/p>\n
“The country is not prepared… not even at the level of hospitals or emergency services,” he said.<\/p>\n
That’s why, he says, help from outside the country will be critical.<\/p>\n
“If the international community doesn’t help, it’s going to be very difficult to rescue people who are trapped,” Parra said.<\/p>\n
Now, he’s working with other Venezuelans in Berks County to figure out the best way to help.<\/p>\n
“We’re thinking about how to raise funds. Right now, we’re looking for a nonprofit organization that can help us get those resources to the right people in Venezuela,” Parra said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKS COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 The first thing Jos\u00e9 Parra did after hearing about the earthquakes was grab his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,93855,4032,128,130,129,31344],"class_list":["post-228506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-earthquake","tag-emergency-services","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}