Caracas.- The Government of Venezuela called this Tuesday for the voluntary collection of DNA samples to identify those who died in the double earthquake on June 24, which has left at least 5,278 dead, according to the latest official report.
Relatives who know or have indications that their loved ones are in the morgues of La Guaira, the state most devastated by the earthquakes, or in those of Bello Monte, Caracas, were summoned to undergo these tests to begin an identification process, according to a statement from the National Service of Medicine and Forensic Sciences (Senamecf) and the Ministry of the Interior.
Read more: Death toll from the double earthquake in Venezuela rises to 5,278
The goal is to “achieve the identification of the victims through scientific comparisons of genetic profiles and provide certainty and peace to the families,” adds the statement, published on Instagram by the Ministry of the Interior.
People must go to the Senamecf headquarters in Bello Monte, Caracas, between Monday and Saturday from 8:30 local time (12:30 GMT) and 18:00 (22:00 GMT) for the DNA tests to be carried out, Senamecf and the ministry indicated.
The double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that occurred almost a month ago in Venezuela left 16,740 injured and 17,907 people homeless, in addition to some 856 buildings affected and 190 collapsed, according to the latest report released on Monday by the Government of Venezuela.
Venezuelan authorities have not reported figures for missing persons, but the citizen initiative ‘Desaparecidos Terremoto Venezuela’, a platform where people whose whereabouts are unknown after the earthquakes are reported, registers 29,500 people with whom contact has not been established.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported last June that it had received unconfirmed figures according to which the number of missing persons could reach 50,000.
Unidentified victims of the double earthquake have been buried in several mass graves recently opened in a municipal cemetery in the state of La Guaira, according to several witnesses who spoke to EFE earlier this month.
