The earth beneath Venezuela shook twice in rapid, merciless succession on Wednesday evening, and when it stopped, an entire nation was left scrambling through rubble, dust, and darkness in search of the living.
Two massive earthquakes, registering magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, tore through Venezuela’s northern coast within a mere 39 seconds of each other, collapsing buildings across the capital, Caracas; flattening entire neighborhoods in the coastal state of La Guaira; and sending hundreds of thousands of terrified residents fleeing into the streets.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has described La Guaira as a “true tragedy” and a “disaster zone,” noting that dozens of buildings have collapsed there, among them a large waterfront hotel in the city of Macuto, reduced entirely to rubble.
The confirmed death toll stands at 32, with more than 700 injured. But those numbers, authorities have cautioned, tell only the beginning of the story. Using predictive modeling, the United States Geological Survey warned that the final death toll would most likely run into the thousands, with a substantial probability of exceeding 10,000.
The figures officially declared by Rodríguez do not yet include casualties from La Guaira, the hardest-hit region, where rescue operations were still underway as of Thursday morning, and communication lines remained severely disrupted.
What makes this disaster seismologically unusual and particularly devastating is the near-simultaneous nature of the two quakes.
The magnitude 7.2 foreshock struck near San Felipe, capital of Yaracuy state, just after 6:04 p.m. local time. A scant 40 seconds later, a larger 7.5-magnitude quake hit some 23 kilometers southeast of the town of Yumare, also in Yaracuy.
The terrifying sequence meant that structures already weakened by the first tremor were offered no time to settle before the second, more powerful blow landed.
Seismology expert Adam Pascale of the Seismology Research Centre in Australia explained the compounding danger: “A 7.5 may not seem much larger than a 7.2, but it’s actually twice as large because of the way the scale works.
It means that shaking will have gone on for so much longer because you’ve had that first one starting the shaking and then 40 seconds later a larger event, which will have a longer duration of shaking.”
Vashan Wright, a geophysicist at the University of California, San Diego, told Al Jazeera that the damage was so extensive because Venezuela lies in a “massive strike-slip fault zone” straddling the Caribbean Plate and the South American Plate and that Caracas itself sits in a deep sedimentary basin, which further amplifies seismic waves.
In Caracas, the scale of destruction unfolded block by block. A 22-story building in the upscale Altamira neighborhood crumbled completely, with volunteers clambering over the ruins, calling out the names of the missing. “We need flashlights,” one rescuer shouted into the darkness.
At a shopping center in the capital, the quakes triggered screams of panic. “It was unbelievable; I don’t even know how long it lasted,” said Heidi Romero, 42, who was on the top floor when the tremors hit. “We went out through the emergency stairs; that’s how they got us out.”
For many residents, it was an experience that defied description. “The stairs came away, and the whole wall cracked. Things fell from the ceiling. It was horrible,” said bank employee Odalis Escalona, 54.
Carmen Guedez, a 69-year-old administrator, was tending to her bedridden sister when the ground began to move. “It kept getting stronger,” she said. “I started to see the windows begin to move, and then everything shook.”
Internet connectivity dropped sharply across Venezuela after the quakes damaged power and telecommunications infrastructure, according to watchdog NetBlocks. With communication lines severed and transport paralyzed, the true picture of the disaster remained frustratingly incomplete as Thursday dawned.
Rodríguez moved swiftly to declare a nationwide state of emergency. A high-level task force was established to oversee search and rescue operations; Simón Bolívar International Airport near Caracas was temporarily closed after sustaining damage; school classes were suspended nationwide for a week; and rail services and non-essential activities were cancelled.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello ordered gas supplies cut to several damaged buildings as a precaution and urged residents to leave their homes, warning of structural risks.
The international response was swift. Venezuela expects to receive US search-and-rescue teams early Thursday, with further rescue teams arriving from the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, and Qatar. Countries including China, Brazil, and several Caribbean nations have also offered humanitarian aid.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the country was “immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance.” President Donald Trump was among the first world leaders to respond publicly, pledging on social media that America stood “ready, willing, and able to help.”
The country is being led by an interim government after US forces captured President Nicolás Maduro earlier this year, and continues to face an economy crippled by years of hyperinflation. Rodríguez, thrust into the role of acting president at a moment of profound political transition, now also faces one of the worst natural disasters in the country’s modern history.
For context, the twin quakes are among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century. The country’s previous deadliest seismic events were a 1997 tremor in the northeast that killed 73 people and the catastrophic 1967 Caracas earthquake that claimed 236 lives.
As rescue workers continued their grim and painstaking work through the night, their flashlights cutting through clouds of dust, relatives weeping at the edges of cordoned-off ruins, Venezuelan authorities faced a race against time.
With La Guaira’s full toll still unknown, and aftershocks continuing to rattle a population already shaken to its core, the worst of this disaster may not yet be fully visible.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Venezuela has been struck by one of the most devastating seismic events in over a century. Twin earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, separated by just 39 seconds, have killed at least 32 people, injured more than 700, and collapsed buildings across the capital, Caracas, and the coastal state of La Guaira.
