Venezuela earthquake death toll rises to 2,595 as rescue efforts turn into recovery mission

The death toll from Venezuela’s twin earthquakes has climbed to 2,595, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday, as emergency operations entered a new phase focused largely on recovering bodies rather than rescuing survivors.

Addressing a press conference, Rodriguez said there were no plans to use mass graves despite thousands of people still being reported missing after the devastating June 24 earthquakes.

She said 189 buildings had been completely destroyed in the disaster, which ravaged large parts of the coastal state of La Guaira and left more than 11,000 people injured.

International aid and reconstruction

Rodriguez said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had offered financial assistance to support Venezuela’s recovery.

She announced the creation of a $200 million reconstruction fund in partnership with the IMF, with the money earmarked for rebuilding homes destroyed by the earthquakes.

The interim president also said revenue from Venezuela’s oil production—currently under US Treasury control following the removal of former president Nicolas Maduro—would be released for reconstruction and humanitarian relief.

The United States has pledged more than $300 million in assistance and deployed about 900 military personnel to aid rescue and relief operations.

US chargé d’affaires John M. Barrett said the funding would support emergency shelter, sanitation, healthcare services and power generation.

Rescue operations give way to recovery

Nearly eight days after the twin earthquakes struck, hopes of finding additional survivors were fading across the worst-hit areas of La Guaira.

In the port city of Catia La Mar, officials carrying body bags and stacking coffins became a common sight as international rescue teams continued searching collapsed buildings after reports of possible survivors.

A rare breakthrough came when 43-year-old security guard Hernán Alberto Gil Flores was pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed shopping mall after spending nearly eight days trapped beneath the debris.

Rescuers said he survived inside an air pocket and stayed alive by consuming food and water passed through small gaps in the wreckage.

Elsewhere, however, recovery crews continued the grim work of retrieving bodies as the smell of decomposing corpses lingered over flattened neighbourhoods.

Health officials have also warned that overcrowded shelters, poor sanitation and untreated injuries could trigger outbreaks of infectious diseases in a healthcare system already under severe strain.

Government rejects criticism

Rodriguez dismissed accusations that her administration had been slow to respond and had left residents to carry out rescue operations on their own in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

“We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately,” she told foreign journalists.

While acknowledging that relatives, neighbours and local residents were often the first to reach collapsed buildings, she accused critics of trying to “politicize a humanitarian tragedy.”

Questions also remain over Rodriguez’s political future, with her 180-day mandate as interim president set to expire on Friday.

She assumed office after Maduro was removed by the United States in January. Under Venezuela’s constitution, the National Assembly could either extend the interim government or call a snap election if the presidency is formally declared vacant.

Deportees among the victims

The earthquakes also killed dozens of Venezuelans who had been deported from the United States just hours before the disaster.

Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, 28, was among more than 100 deportees who arrived in Venezuela shortly before the earthquakes struck.

His family said the deportees were taken to a hotel in La Guaira that was being used as a temporary holding facility. Most of the 146 deportees staying there were trapped when the building collapsed.

“My son was not a criminal,” his mother, Oswadeliz Nuñez, said after collecting his ashes. “I don’t want this death to go unpunished.”

The US Department of Homeland Security said responsibility for the deportees transferred to Venezuelan authorities once the flight landed.

Transparency concerns

Even as Washington praised the Venezuelan government’s cooperation during relief efforts, human rights groups called for strict oversight of reconstruction spending.

Laura Cristina Dib, Venezuela programme director at the Washington Office on Latin America, said transparency would be essential to ensure aid reached those most affected.

“There are a lot of transparency questions that linger on the use of that fund in a moment in which Venezuelans really need that money to be used for the protection of Venezuelans,” she said.

As recovery teams continue combing through the ruins of La Guaira, thousands remain displaced and authorities warn the final human toll from Venezuela’s deadliest natural disaster in decades is likely to rise further.