CARACAS — José Alberto Gallipoli was in Caracas when the ground moved. Twenty miles away, in the coastal city of La Guaira, a seven-story apartment building where his son lived was collapsing. He walked there.
Four days after twin earthquakes struck northern Venezuela within 39 seconds of each other on June 24, Gallipoli stood in the street outside the rubble calling his son’s name. Rescue workers heard something from somewhere inside the basement. They cleared a path overnight. On Sunday, a four-year-old boy emerged first, telling rescue workers he felt OK, and then the son, and then the son’s wife. Gallipoli’s family was carried out on improvised fabric stretchers, wearing masks, visibly weakened. They were alive.
Specialist opinion holds that after 72 hours, the odds of finding earthquake survivors in the rubble drop sharply. Gallipoli’s family survived four days inside a collapsed building in the summer heat of a Venezuelan coastal city. At least 33 people were pulled out alive across the weekend. The rescuers do not know how many more, if any, remain breathing inside the estimated 189 buildings that completely collapsed across the affected region.
Venezuela’s government put the confirmed death toll at more than 1,430 on Sunday, with over 3,200 people injured and roughly 68,900 reported missing. The United Nations has estimated damage at between $4.7 billion and $8.7 billion, somewhere between four and eight percent of the country’s entire economic output, with the true cost potentially one and a half to three times higher once assessments are complete.
The two earthquakes struck in quick succession at 6:04 p.m. local time on June 24, both centered near Yumare and Morón in the Yaracuy-Carabobo region, approximately 160 kilometers west of Caracas. The first measured magnitude 7.2; the second, 39 seconds later, reached 7.5. Both were shallow, at 10 kilometers depth, which amplified the shaking across a wide swath of northern Venezuela and sent tremors as far as Caracas, where buildings swayed and residents fled into the streets.
La Guaira, the coastal state north of the capital that is home to Simón Bolívar International Airport, absorbed the worst of it. More than 1,400 buildings were destroyed there. The airport sustained heavy damage, disrupting the movement of rescue personnel and relief supplies in the critical first hours. On June 26, a 4.7 magnitude aftershock collapsed a bridge connecting Caraballeda parish to the rest of the state, cutting off a key route for emergency teams. A total of 138 aftershocks have been recorded since the initial event.
More than 2,000 rescue workers from 27 countries have deployed to Venezuela through United Nations coordination, according to Al Jazeera. Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, and the United States are among the countries that have pledged assistance. Washington has committed $150 million in aid and announced plans to deploy warships, transport aircraft, and helicopters. The Venezuelan Red Cross activated teams in the affected states within hours of the initial quakes and has coordinated with international search-and-rescue teams since.
Acting President Delcy Rodriguez declared La Guaira a disaster zone and deployed more than 14,000 military personnel to the region by June 27. A $200 million reconstruction fund has been announced, drawing on International Monetary Fund resources. Rodriguez, who assumed executive authority after January’s political crisis removed her predecessor, faces the most significant governance test of her tenure. Whether the international response integrates with Venezuela’s domestic operation or becomes a source of diplomatic friction is not yet clear. The country’s longstanding tensions with Washington, and the presence of US military assets in an aid role, add a layer of political complexity that Rodriguez has so far navigated without public confrontation.
The families of the roughly 68,900 people reported missing have been circulating photographs on WhatsApp and posting details on social media, the distributed, informal accounting that disaster response organizations work to reconcile with official lists in the days after a major event. Venezuelan officials have warned repeatedly that the final toll will be substantially higher than the current confirmed figure. The gap between 1,430 confirmed dead and 68,900 unaccounted for is too wide to close quickly. Search operations in the rubble were still active as of Sunday, five days after the initial earthquakes struck.
What is known: the earthquakes were among the most destructive in Venezuelan history, the rescue operation is the largest the country has attempted, and the international response is genuine in scale. What is not: when the missing become a number, and how large that number will be.
Gallipoli’s family is home. The search in La Guaira continues.
