Here's the latest
• Death toll: More than 1,700 people have died since last week’s devastating earthquakes in Venezuela. CNN is on the ground in La Guaira and Caracas, where teams are digging through the rubble as part of frantic rescue efforts.
• Glimmers of hope: Search efforts have provided some moments of jubilation, including the rescue of an infant and a woman trapped for over three days. Officials are hoping a surge of foreign aid and responders will bolster emergency workers and help address humanitarian needs.
• Struggling institutions: The disaster has compounded issues from years of economic and political strife, particularly for the overwhelmed healthcare system.
• Here’s how you can help earthquake victims.
In pictures: Rescue efforts continue into Monday evening
At least 1,719 people have died after powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela last week, a top lawmaker said Monday, as rescuers race against the clock to find survivors trapped under the rubble.
International aid groups and have arrived in Venezuela to support relief efforts following the deadly quakes, one of which was the largest recorded in the country for more than a century.
Many displaced residents have nowhere to go following the disaster. Some of the worst damage can be seen in the state of La Guaira, the capital Caracas and surrounding areas.
See more pictures here.
Israeli disaster response team to depart for Venezuela on Tuesday
An Israeli aid and disaster response team will depart for Venezuela on Tuesday to help in the aftermath of the earthquake, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced.
The team will include members of the ministry as well as first responders from Israel’s Home Front Command. Experts from the National Emergency Management Authority will join later.
The deployment to Venezuela is noteworthy for Israel since the two countries have had no diplomatic relations for years.
“The experts will work in cooperation with their counterparts in Venezuela and in accordance with the needs on the ground,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Officials in Caracas use "traffic light" system to assess infrastructure damage
The Chacao Mayor’s Office, which is in Caracas, has begun assessing structural damage caused by last Wednesday’s double earthquake, particularly in the Los Palos Grandes area, one of the hardest-hit zones.
To do this, they are using a “traffic light” system: buildings marked green remain habitable; yellow signifies moderate damage; and red indicates that the structure is unsafe for entry.
Damage is visible everywhere, ranging from cracked facades to huge fissures in the streets. Certain areas and buildings remain closed to the public while the necessary assessments are carried out.
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez said later that experts are in La Guaira, Miranda and Caracas to determine if homes are habitable. Officials are also “elaborating projects” to build new homes for those who were displaced, she said.
Venezuela quake death toll rises to 1,719, top lawmaker says
At least 1,719 people have died as a result of the powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela last week, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Monday.
The US Geological Survey says there’s a 44% chance that the final death toll could be 10,000 people or more.
The tremors have affected at least 22,619 people, including 5,034 who were injured, Rodríguez said, adding that of the at least 855 buildings that were damaged, 189 collapsed completely.
Since the earthquakes struck Wednesday, there have been 609 aftershocks, including one that was widely felt earlier today but left no significant damage, he added.
Military air support helping crews reach isolated areas in Venezuela, US rescuer says
Military air support is helping crews reach isolated areas in Venezuela affected by the earthquakes, Capt. Mike Eddy, of Fairfax County, Virginia Urban Search and Rescue, told CNN.
Eddy is a part of the US rescue mission inside Venezuela.
“So fortunately, we’ve been able to help with the state and the military for air assets. So they’ve been able to move some of the assets into inaccessible areas,” he told CNN’s Erica Hill.
He said ground operations are still taking more time. “It does take a little bit of time to get to the sites. Sometimes it takes up to two hours to get to areas where we need to be,” Eddy said, citing traffic and construction.
“But fortunately, with the military coming in and assisting us with air assets, we’ve been able to move teams quickly,” he said.
Eddy said that the latest aftershocks from this morning are causing some concern. “So a lot of the buildings that we run into… some of the buildings are on the ground, but the buildings next to it or adjacent to it, those buildings are on the verge of collapsing. So it is a very big safety concern for us,” he said.
Eddy said there are engineers on his team that are there to help assess the situation.
Eddy said that he believes US rescue crews will be on the ground in Venezuela “for quite some time.”
“But right now we’re still in the search and rescue mission. So we’re still moving straight ahead,” he said.
Many buildings in Chacao sustained serious structural damage and require urgent inspection
The buildings that collapsed draw the most attention in Los Palos Grandes, a residential and business district in the Chacao municipality in the eastern part of Caracas.
However, many other properties were severely affected and require urgent inspection to determine whether they remain habitable.
Throughout the area, the damage to the buildings is visible to the naked eye; although they were left standing, they sustained damage ranging from moderate to severe.
"I'm on my own": Venezuela's quake survivors struggle without their homes
Amid the noise of heavy machinery and clouds of dust, Soledad Campos Aparicio holds her dog in her arms, waiting for permission to return home.
It’s unlikely to happen anytime soon as she’s one of thousands who have been displaced since the double earthquake hit Venezuela last week.
The 78-year-old woman lives next to the Petunia building, one of the structures that completely collapsed in Chacao, a municipality of Venezeula’s capital Caracas. “We go in and out, but they won’t let us stay,” the woman told CNN of not being able to stay in her apartment.
The neighboring Petunia building was left in ruins following the earthquakes. On Saturday, Chacao Mayor Gustavo Duque stated that Mexican and Argentine rescue teams had entered “everywhere they could,” but that rescue operations at the site were extremely difficult.
On Monday, CNN observed heavy machinery and rescue workers continuing to clear debris at the site, while volunteers provided support by offering water and food to the workers.
The global humanitarian response is growing. Here's the latest
As Venezuelan first responders, civilian volunteers and rescue teams from around the world continue to search through the rubble, an evolving humanitarian response is trying to meet the needs of survivors in hard-hit areas.
A series of rescue operations unfolded in Venezuela following last week's powerful twin earthquakes. At least 1,450 people have died after back-to-back 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes hit the South American country, according to Venezuela's top lawmaker.
Here’s a roundup of some of the latest relief efforts:
- China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Beijing will provide another $14.7 million (100 million yuan) in emergency humanitarian aid to Venezuela.
- Spain’s Armed Forces said search dogs had been essential in rescue operations. Countries around the world have sent 2,624 rescue workers and 137 search dogs, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said on Sunday.
- Peru’s Ministry of Defense said it had sent more than 14 tons of humanitarian aid to support affected families.
- Thirty-two specially trained military personnel were sent from Paraguay to help the search and rescue effort. Defense Minister Óscar González said the recent severing of diplomatic relations with Venezuela did not pose “any obstacle” in coordinating the aid.
- The US said it was sending a specialized Air Force response team to help Venezuela restore operations at its damaged airport. It has committed $300 million to the earthquake response so far, a senior administration official said Monday.
- Starlink announced that it is offering free internet access to Movistar customers in La Guaria state, and is working to also provide services to Digitel and Movilnet customers as soon as possible. The US has been working to get more Starlink terminals into the country.
- Mexico will send additional humanitarian aid to Venezuela, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said it would include “water purification plants and power generators” and non-perishable food.
- The European Union says it will send €5 million (roughly $5.7 million) in humanitarian aid focusing on providing shelter and health care to victims. It will also organize a humanitarian air bridge to transport essential supplies to affected areas.
CNN’s Amy Croffey, Catherine Nicholls, Laura Sharman and Sophie Tanno contributed to this report.
US has committed $300 million to earthquake response so far, official says
The United States has committed $300 million to the earthquake response so far, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.
“I think this is, by really any estimate, at this point the largest response to any natural disaster the United States has mounted in this century in terms of personnel on the ground, money out the door, speed,” the official said, claiming that more money has been committed than at the same stage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake response.
“You saw it jump quite a lot in the last few days,” the official said of the amount of money dedicated to the efforts, “even from two days ago. And I think it’ll continue to increase as we scale up our relief efforts, which remain very much ongoing and growing by the hour in terms of the supplies coming in and all the partnerships we’re announcing and everything and everyone that we’re working with.”
The senior administration official said Monday that at least three Americans have been killed, and 12 are missing of the roughly 5,000 US citizens known to be in the country.
The US has more than 300 search and rescue personnel from four teams on the ground in Venezuela, the official said. Hundreds of US military personnel are also assisting with relief efforts, US Southern Command said in a release on Sunday.
Three to four US field hospitals have also been stood up and there are “additional ones coming online in the next 24 to 48 hours,” the senior official administration added.
“Money is not an obstacle here in terms of our efforts to save lives,” they said.
A closer look at La Guaira, the state hit hardest by the earthquakes
Rescue efforts are still underway for survivors in Venezuela’s La Guaira state, the area hardest hit by last week’s twin earthquakes.
La Guaira, located in the north of the country, on the coast, is home to one of the largest seaports in Venezuela and the Simón Bolívar International Airport, which serves the capital, Caracas.
It is one of the most populated states in the country and is estimated to have a population of around 300,000 inhabitants, according to the Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, a public educational institution in Venezuela.
La Guaira was previously known as Vargas state up until June 2019, when the state’s name change was made official.
The state went through one of its most tragic moments in December 1999, when a landslide caused by torrential rains led to the death and disappearance of thousands of people. Houses and vehicles were buried under waves of thick mud.
Researchers from the Central University of Venezuela said that the 1999 tragedy resulted in about 15,000 people missing or dead, around US $3.5 billion in losses, the destruction of more than 15,000 homes, and approximately 75,000 people left homeless. The Venezuelan government never released an official death toll.
Much like the tragedy more than two decades ago, the full scale of destruction from the latest earthquakes may not be known for several days or weeks, as La Guaira’s residents reel from yet another disaster in their state’s history.
Read more about La Guaira in our full article here.
Older patients struggling to access care after earthquakes, health official warns
Older patients with chronic conditions are struggling to access care after health facilities across Venezuela were damaged in the earthquakes last week, a health official has warned.
“We are seeing increasingly some older patients that have chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes and others that do not have enough health access,” said Dr. Ciro Ugarte, director of health emergencies at the Pan American Health Organization.
The warning comes as damaged hospitals and overwhelmed medical facilities continue to place pressure on Venezuela’s health system in the aftermath of the back-to-back earthquakes.
Ugarte told CNN’s Becky Anderson on “Connect the World” that only five health facilities remain that are fully operating in areas where the earthquake was severe, out of 21.
CNN spoke to a doctor in Caracas who said hospitals were overwhelmed with patients, with eight facilities having to close and patients having to be transferred.
Aftershocks shake Venezuela, renewing fears as rescue efforts continue
Aftershocks shook Venezuela again this morning, reigniting fear among residents reeling from last Wednesday’s double earthquake as rescue efforts continue.
The latest aftershock, measuring magnitude 4.6, struck just a few kilometers from La Guaira — the hardest-hit area — caused no further damage across the country, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said.
Still, fear was palpable on Venezuelan streets as people awaited answers amid the uncertainty. Many residents remain in temporary shelters and are unsure where they will live next, while tensions rise over prolonged outages of electricity, water, internet and gas.
Here’s the latest:
- A doctor has told CNN that hospitals in Venezuela’s capital are overwhelmed with patients and running short of essential cleaning products. He said eight hospitals in or near the capital had been forced to close due to structural damage caused by the back-to-back earthquakes, with patients transferred to other clinics that were still operating.
- The Chacao Mayor’s Office, which is in Caracas, has begun assessing structural damage in the hardest-hit zones using a “traffic light” system: buildings marked green remain habitable; yellow signifies moderate damage; and red indicates that the structure is unsafe for entry.
- An official from Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the first Cuban fatality resulting from the earthquakes in Venezuela, identifying the individual as Lupercio Adrian D’Pérez y Pando.
- Several US disaster response teams are on the ground in Venezuela assisting with rescue and relief efforts. This team, which arrived on Saturday, under the direction of the US Southern Command, brought in specialist rescue dogs and crates of humanitarian supplies with them.
- The deadly earthquakes have deepened the “crisis” facing the country’s children, many of whom were already living in poverty, an international charity has warned.
- Despite widespread uncertainty and devastation, Venezuelans are supporting one another through small acts of kindness. Businesses are opening their doors — some even after sustaining damage.
CNN’s Mustafa Qadri, Osmary Hernández, Gonzalo Zegarra and Issy Ronald contributed to this report.
How rescue workers work to find people buried under rubble
Finding people buried under collapsed buildings is difficult, painstaking work and requires coordinating many different specialist teams from all around the world.
First, in the hours immediately after earthquakes strike, surveys are carried out to assess the damage, establish priorities, estimate resources required and identify any hazards, in line with protocol laid out by the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group, which coordinates similar efforts. US helicopters have helped with this stage in Venezuela, according to US Southern Command.
Plans to divide damaged areas into sectors are then drawn up to better organize rescue teams, according to the group’s guidelines.
After that, according to the group, rescue workers identify where they think people are likely to have survived and focus their priorities there. They will speak to locals for information on victims and building layouts, work out escape routes and attempt to identify pockets within the rubble where people might be, listening, like in La Guaira, in near-total silence for any sign of life.
Specially trained dogs are crucial for finding survivors; they and their handlers are crawling under broken beams and into tight spaces in the buildings destroyed by these earthquakes. Technology plays its part too. “We go in with these micro drones, they call them cockroach drones, that help us find people in the buildings,” UN aid chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC Saturday.
But even the most detailed plans can run into problems on the ground when they are enacted.
Venezuelans with family members still missing are expressing their frustration at the lack of heavy machinery helping teams move the huge amounts of debris.
At the scene of one collapsed building, industrial engineer Alejandro Serrano told Reuters there was a “strong smell of death” and that machine operators who had pledged to help clear the rubble have yet to show up.
CNN’s Stefano Pozzebon, Max Saltman, Jessie Yeung, Laura Paddison and Sophie Tanno contributed reporting.
Hundreds of boxes of aid donations awaiting shipment from Spain to Venezuela
International aid efforts to help Venezuela recover from the twin earthquakes are stepping up around the world, and one volunteer-led effort in Spain has collected hundreds of boxes of food and other supplies.
Hygiene products, first aid supplies and even tools to help with rescue efforts are among the items collected from more than 45 collection points in the Spanish capital Madrid, with more in other areas of the country.
The donations are now being collected at a warehouse in Leganés, a city on the outskirts of Madrid, where they are being organized and packed ready for shipment to Venezuela.
Venezuelan dancer and actress Eloisa Maturen, a spokesperson for the volunteer organization Acción por Venezuela, told CNN that separating the donations by category is key.
“We have everything super organised because it’s important that everything arrives in place, because there are priorities: the first things that will leave are medicines and tools for removing the rubble,” she said.
The first shipment of medicines is expected to be flown to Caracas tomorrow, she said, with clothes, non-perishable food and water to be transported by ship as it is less urgent.
“This will be a long process, it will take a couple of months,” she added. “We have to be patient, because we want this help to actually get to the hands of those who need it the most.”
Maturen explained that volunteers had started asking for donations on Whatsapp in Madrid and the surrounding area, but she has since received messages from all over Spain.
“We never thought that people were going to respond like this,” she said, adding that the organizers are now coordinating their efforts with the Spanish government to ensure the donations get to where they are needed most.
Hospitals in Caracas "overwhelmed" and short on cleaning supplies, doctor warns
A doctor has told CNN that hospitals in Venezuela’s capital are overwhelmed with patients following last week’s devastating earthquakes, and running short of essential cleaning products.
“All the hospitals are overwhelmed” said Dr Andres Cortiz, a volunteer with Healing Venezuela – a UK based charity that provides free medical care to people in Venezuela.
He said eight hospitals in or near the capital had been forced to close due to structural damage caused by the back-to-back earthquakes, with patients transferred to other clinics that were still operating.
“They have closed eight hospitals in the area in Caracas because of structural damages… and all the patients that were there were transferred to the other hospitals in Caracas, which has overloaded their capacity.”
Dr Cortiz said hospitals are in urgent need of disinfecting solutions like bleach.
He said hospital staff did not have enough products to disinfect the floors and have been asking for “bleach and detergent and material to sterilize and clean the area.”
Aftershocks reignite fear as people seek answers
Venezuela shook again this morning, reigniting fear among residents who are still trying to recover from last Wednesday’s double earthquake.
Monday’s aftershock, measuring magnitude 4.6, struck just a few kilometers from La Guaira — the hardest-hit area — though it caused no further damage across the country, according to National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez.
Yet, fear was palpable on Venezuelan streets as people awaited answers amid the uncertainty. Many remain in temporary shelters, wondering where they will live next.
Tension is mounting as the population waits for basic services — such as electricity, water, internet, and gas — to be restored.
Havana confirms first Cuban fatality in Venezuela earthquakes
An official from Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the first Cuban fatality resulting from the earthquakes in Venezuela, identifying the individual as Lupercio Adrian D’Pérez y Pando.
“We extend our heartfelt condolences to family and friends,” said Ana Teresita González, director general of Consular Affairs and Attention to Cuban Residents Abroad at the island’s Foreign Ministry.
“We are working tirelessly to gather information with Venezuelan authorities, the Association of Cubans, our personnel on the ground, and other organizations to confirm if any other nationals have died or are missing,” the official added in a message on X.
Cuba sent a brigade that arrived in Caracas on Sunday to support search and rescue operations.
US disaster response teams on the ground in Venezuela
Several US disaster response teams are on the ground in Venezuela assisting with rescue and relief efforts.
This team, under the direction of US Southern Command, landed in Venezuela on Saturday, bringing specialist rescue dogs and crates of humanitarian supplies with them.
US Marines have been among those racing to search for survivors buried under collapsed buildings while US helicopters have taken off from the USS Lauderdale to conduct aerial surveys of damaged areas, US Southern Command said over the weekend.
In Venezuelan capital, acts of solidarity amid supply shortages
The Venezuelan capital is holding onto the small gestures of kindness its residents are extending to the community, as supply shortages bite and the window of time to find survivors closes.
Many supermarkets in Caracas remain closed, leading people to flock to large pharmacies, which also sell some food items. The hardest items to find on the shelves are diapers, gloves, and face masks – essentials for the community affected by last Wednesday’s double earthquake.
Other businesses are opening their doors, some doing so despite having sustained damage. At a small café, customers receive a note with a message of encouragement along with their order. It is one of many small gestures seen across the city, reflecting a community trying to face the tragedy through solidarity.
Earthquakes will deepen crisis for Venezuelan children, charity warns
The deadly earthquakes that hit Venezuela last week have deepened the “crisis” facing the country’s children, many of whom were already living in poverty, an international charity has warned.
“Before the earthquake, large numbers of Venezuelan children were already suffering from malnutrition, limited access to healthcare gaps in vaccination and interrupted schooling,” said Mariana Siblesz de Alvarez, chair of Chamos, an international charity that delivers aid to Venezuelan children.
She told CNN this had come from “years of economic collapse” and a shortage of “medical and teaching professionals,” adding the disaster “compounds every one of those vulnerabilities.”
Siblesz de Alvarez said the situation was worse for families who lost their homes, as already stretched social services cannot accommodate a sudden influx of displaced people.
“Shelters are filling up… hospitals that were already under pressure are now overwhelmed,” she said.
“For those who have lost everything, the fragile system is not able to accommodate them. This disaster will only deepen a problem that was already severe,” she added.
