Carayaca .- Hundreds of unidentified victims of the double earthquake on June 24 are being buried in several mass graves that have been opened recently due to the emergency at a municipal cemetery in the Venezuelan state of La Guaira, several witnesses told EFE.
Local residents told EFE that they have seen several trucks heading toward the cemetery, and a worker at the La Esperanza graveyard, who requested anonymity, noted that three vehicles arrived this Monday with about 30 deceased individuals.
The same worker detailed that the bodies arrive unidentified, but they bury them in coffins with a white cross.
The employee told EFE that between Saturday, June 27, and Wednesday, July 1, about 10 trucks with corpses arrived, so he estimates that at least 800 people may have been buried at the site.
Search through the rubble
The EFE team was able to see from a hamlet (village) in the area the work of the authorities in the cemetery, where a plot of land on a hillside was prepared where several dozen trenches have been dug.
It is a very large plot of land where the coffins have already been placed side by side, in a row, with a white cross outside, but which, due to its size, could house thousands more coffins.
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On the ground there was an awning under which the officials were sheltering more crosses, while they proceeded to cover with earth the urns already placed in the graves.
Around 13:00 local time (17:00 GMT), the municipal police blocked the media’s access to La Esperanza cemetery, located about 25 kilometers from the urban center of Catia la Mar, and informed EFE that they needed a permit from the armed forces.
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The latest official death toll from the double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on June 24, given this Monday by the President of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, places the number of deceased at 3,535 and the injured at 16,740.
Hundreds of relatives are still waiting around the collapsed buildings for volunteers and officials to pull their loved ones from the rubble, while the death toll provided by Venezuelan authorities rises daily between 200 and 300 people found lifeless.
