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By Brendan Cole, Hannah Parry, and Steve Mollman
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The death toll from the Venezuela earthquakes rose to 1,430, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Saturday in a televised address.
More than 3,200 people were injured and many believed to still be trapped under the rubble after the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes struck in quick succession on Wednesday evening.
Families posted images online of loved ones missing since the quakes. Officials and humanitarian agencies estimate that more than 50,000 people remain unaccounted for.
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Venezuela’s Earthquake Response Exposes Its US Client State Status7 min read
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Rodríguez told CNN that the public should avoid La Guaira, the hardest-hit area.
“We appreciate the overwhelming desire to help, but the roads we are using to transport the injured are becoming congested. The best way to help is to keep the roads clear so that medical teams can transport patients and rescue crews can carry out their work more effectively,” he said.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced the new death toll as she welcomed the arrival of rescue crews from all over the world. “We are going to rescue the people who are trapped,” she said, according to the Associated Press (AP).
She also said Friday night that President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio called her to reassert America's pledge to assist in recovery efforts.
"They reaffirmed their commitment to supporting the response efforts by sending rescue workers, specialist equipment, support for temporary shelters and humanitarian aid for the affected families. We are deeply grateful for this gesture of friendship and cooperation," the acting president said in an additional post to X.
Missing-person flyers with photos of loved ones were handed out in the streets while others shared handwritten lists of names as they searched, the AP reported.
Rescuers are searching for survivors in collapsed buildings in Caracas and the state of La Guaira where cries for help were audible from under debris.
Venezuelan state TV showed images of rescues, including one of a woman trapped under a cement slab who was brought out alive. Graciela Mora was conscious as she was pulled from the rubble in La Guaira, telling reporters, "when the earthquake started, I clung as tightly as I could to the doorframe."
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Others described the fear and chaos.
As previously reported by Newsweek, Marian Rieber, a health journalist in Caracas, said she was taking her dog down the stairs when "everything began to move from left to right very strongly as if it were the tide of a beach."
"I felt that the floor kept moving, then the aftershocks came," she added.
Tony Frangie Mawad, a Caracas‑based journalist, was in an elevator when the shaking began. When the doors finally opened in the building’s second basement, he and two others sprinted into the parking lot.
"That’s when I realized it wasn’t just a minor shake," he said. "Buildings hadn’t collapsed in Caracas from a quake since 1967." He added that "it looked like Gaza."
The second earthquake was the strongest to hit the country since 1900, forming a so-called "doublet" sequence, which differs from the typical scenario in which a larger quake is followed by much smaller aftershocks.
Both earthquakes were shallow at less than 20 miles below ground, potentially adding to the damage.
Marcos Ferreira, a geophysicist and researcher at the Geological Survey of Brazil, told the AP the one-two punch of the quakes, along with the shallow seismic movements, amplified the destruction. The U.S. Geological Survey said the two earthquakes were centered near Moron on the Caribbean coast, 105 miles west of the Venezuelan capital Caracas.
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Foreign Nationals Among Dead
Foreigners are among those who have been killed although search efforts are continuing, and the full number of casualties remains to be seen.
Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares said three Spanish nationals were confirmed to have died and 99 were missing.
Brazil’s foreign ministry said that a Brazilian man and a Brazilian woman had died, while China’s embassy in Caracas said that two Chinese nationals had also been killed. The AFP News agency reported that nine Portuguese nationals had died.
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U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) has said that Major General Kevin Jarrard had arrived in Caracas to oversee the Department of Defense's relief effort which it said would include rapid, life-saving movement of response personnel, equipment, and humanitarian assistance into affected areas.
The U.S. military has begun mobilizing support for the response. In a post on X Saturday, U.S. Southern Command said its forces were “moving quickly” to provide airlift, logistics and other capabilities to support rescue operations alongside the State Department and international partners.
However, Venezuelan doctor, Pedro Javier Fernandez, a member of the medical group Medicos Unidos Venezuela, told the BBC the country’s economic and humanitarian circumstances before the earthquakes make any relief effort difficult.
“Venezuela is in the context of a humanitarian, complex emergency," he said, “all our hospitals lack supplies, lack medicines, we are not able to provide medical attention to our people in a normal day.”
Another doctor, Franklin Rodriguez, who traveled to the region of La Guaira told the BBC Radio 4’s that the two main hospitals in the state were "completely overwhelmed."
“There is a critical lack of medicine and medical supplies,” he said, “medical facilities do not have the capacity to handle the massive volume of people.”
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Foreign Help Arrives
Venezuela's acting president Rodriguez said “we are working tirelessly” on trying to rescue survivors trapped beneath the rubble and emergency teams were being deployed from other parts of the country to La Guaira.
She had earlier declared a state of emergency and said the government was creating a $200 million reconstruction fund for damaged hospitals and homes.
Meanwhile, the U.N.'s humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC the disaster required a global response “and we'll coordinate that and we will deliver."
Jens Laerk, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday that 1,000 emergency responders in 25 search-and-rescue teams were being sent to Venezuela.
They include a 65-strong Dutch rescue team, a team from El Salvador as well as rescue personnel from Mexico. Venezuela’s state broadcaster said that 80 rescue workers and 18 tonnes of supplies had arrived from Switzerland on Friday.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 1,600 foreign rescuers had arrived, with additional teams still on the way, underscoring the scale of the international response.
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Venezuelan television also showed the arrival of rescuers with dogs and equipment from Spain. Teams from Germany, Chile and Switzerland also landed, according to the AP. Turkey and China have sent assistance, with leaders from Qatar, Brazil, Portugal and Canada also pledging help.
Nicola Puchelt, a spokesperson for the International Search and Rescue Dog Organization (IRO) said that six teams of dogs and handlers were heading to Venezuela to help find survivors, and she said that the first 72 hours of an operation were crucial.
What US Assistance Is Being Provided?
Rubio has said that the U.S. would deploy a "whole-of-government response," adding "it’ll be big; it’ll be fast; and it’ll be effective,” although he acknowledged the closure of Venezuela’s main airport near Caracas created logistical challenges.
The Trump administration announced on Thursday about its rapid response resources it is sending to the country six months after it captured its former leader Nicolas Maduro.
This would consist of a regional Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) of two urban search and rescue teams to find survivors.
The U.S. would also provide $150 million through its partners including the International Medical Corps and the World Food Program. There would also be a $100 million contribution to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Venezuela pooled fund.
The Trump administration has also launched a task force to coordinate assistance and get help to Americans affected. Military assets, including fixed and rotor-wing aircraft, to support search and rescue efforts would also be on the ground.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Frances Mao, Tony Phillips, Anna Commander and Edward Cummins.
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