Washington.- The World Bank estimated this Thursday that the direct physical damage caused by the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24th amounts to 19.6 billion dollars and warned that a slow reconstruction could hinder the country’s economic recovery over the next decade.
The assessment, prepared using the Global Rapid Damage Estimation (Grade) methodology, concludes that 47% of the damage corresponds to housing, with losses valued at 9.3 billion dollars, while infrastructure suffered 5.2 billion in damage (27%) and non-residential buildings 5 billion (26%).
The institution’s report highlights that the most affected areas were La Guaira and the Capital District, which accounted for nearly 47% of the total economic impact.
The new data also indicate that the states of Miranda and Carabobo recorded significant losses, so that, together with La Guaira and the Capital District, they accounted for 85% of the damages estimated by the international organization.
“Effective recovery begins with reliable information,” stated the World Bank Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, Susana Cordeiro Guerra, who assured that the assessment offers the Venezuelan government and its partners an objective basis to plan for reconstruction and reiterated the institution’s commitment to supporting that process.
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The risk surrounding reconstruction financing
According to the analysis, if the reconstruction is financed solely through the reallocation of resources from other investment projects and does not increase public and private investment, the works could remain unfinished within ten years.
In that scenario, productive capacity, gross domestic product, and consumption would remain below pre-disaster levels until at least 2036.
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The World Bank indicated that it is working with the Government of Venezuela and other multilateral organizations, including the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), to define the technical and financial support necessary for the subsequent phases of assessment, recovery, and reconstruction.
The earthquakes of June 24, with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, occurred just 39 seconds apart and are among the most devastating in Venezuela’s recent history
