In brief
- Rescue efforts are ongoing after two powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela.
- Offers of support have poured in from countries around the world.
Desperate Venezuelans are battling to rescue loved ones trapped alive beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings after two major earthquakes that killed at least 188 people.
Venezuela's strongest earthquake since 1900 sent rescuers and locals clambering in the dark over flattened apartments, hunting for survivors and extracting people from under the ruins.
Offers of rescue support and aid flooded in as National Assembly chief Jorge Rodriguez said the death toll had risen to 188, with 1,520 injured.
Buildings cracked and crumbled and residents fled into the streets after the quakes, which the United States Geological Survey (USGS) measured at magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, hit northern Venezuela within a minute of each other on Thursday.
Powerful aftershocks could still be felt the following day.
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The state of La Guaira north of Caracas was hit particularly hard, and residents stumbled through debris calling out the names of loved ones or tried in vain to rescue the injured.
"We have nothing, right now we have nothing, not even the strength or the courage to go in there, just imagine," Larry Rojas, 49, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency, standing in front of a collapsed building where his family was trapped in the La Guaira city of Catia La Mar.
Interim president Delcy Rodriguez visited La Guaira on Friday after the area was declared a "disaster zone."
UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was "deeply saddened" by the disaster as the global body vowed to assist Venezuela.
The strongest quake to hit Venezuela in 126 years will require "massive collective efforts," UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.
The coastal city was without electricity, and many residents spent the night in the streets or searching for their relatives, according to AFP reporters.
The 7.5-magnitude earthquake was Venezuela's most powerful since 29 October, 1900, when a 7.7-magnitude tremor struck offshore.
'No-one saving them'
After Wednesday's shock, some residential buildings showed large cracks and fallen walls, with dozens of others destroyed, according to AFP reporters.
"There are people alive in there and no-one is coming to save them," said a woman waiting for news of her daughter, who was buried in a ruined 12-story building.
Offers of support poured in from around the world, with Switzerland, Spain, France, Portugal and Mexico among those sending specialists and rescue teams to Venezuela.
China, India, Brazil, the US and even war-battered Iran have also offered help, while Pope Leo XIV has sent an initial 100,000 euros in aid to the country.
The US was "immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela," US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday.
The first quake, with an epicentre 21 kilometres west of the coastal town of Moron, occurred at 2204 GMT, USGS said. Within a minute, a 7.5-magnitude quake struck about 45 kilometres away.
"This earthquake was the second event in a doublet. This magnitude 7.5 mainshock was preceded by 39 seconds by a 7.2 foreshock," USGS said.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello asked people to leave their homes, adding that gas supplies had been cut to several buildings as a precaution.
"We have some damaged structures and we don't want any kind of accident involving gas to occur," he said.
The Maiquetia International Airport, located near Caracas, was closed due to "serious damage" to its infrastructure, Rodriguez said, with social media posts showing its severely damaged facilities.
The quakes triggered panic in the capital and drove people into the streets, AFP journalists saw.
"The stairs came away, the whole wall cracked. Things fell from the ceiling. It was horrible," said 54-year-old bank employee Odalis Escalona.
An AFP journalist saw a 22-story building completely destroyed in the capital's Altamira neighbourhood, where people cried out relatives' names as volunteers climbed over the rubble.
"We need flashlights," one of them said.
'We couldn't get out'
The tremors struck at a depth of 22 kilometres and 10 kilometres, respectively.
They prompted screams of panic at a shopping centre in Caracas, an AFP journalist observed.
"It was unbelievable, I don't even know how long it lasted," said shopkeeper Heidi Romero, who was on the top floor when the quake struck.
"We went out through the emergency stairs; that's how they got us out," the 42-year-old told AFP.
Many more in the capital exited buildings and waited outside before returning to their offices and homes.
Carmen Guedez, 69, was in the same room as her bedridden sister when she felt the jolt.
"It kept getting stronger," said the administrator, who lives in a hilly middle-class neighbourhood above the capital. "I started to see the windows begin to move and then everything shook."
She described how she "huddled together" with her sister and a neighbour, adding that "we couldn't get out. The neighbours are still out on the street."
The states of Trujillo, Carabobo, Miranda and La Guaira were the hardest hit, according to Cabello.
The quake was felt as far away as the Colombian capital of Bogota, where alarms sounded, and some residents evacuated buildings as a precaution.
Freddy Tovar, coordinator of Colombia's National Seismological Network, said they had received more than 200 reports of tremors nationwide.
"The conditions of this seismic event mean that some aftershocks may occur, which could also be widely felt across Colombian territory," he said in a video posted on X.
The strongest tremors in earthquake-prone Venezuela's recent history occurred in the northeast in 1997, killing 73 people, and in Caracas in 1967, when 236 people died.
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