EFE.- The president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, assured this Saturday that there are 315 unidentified bodies following the double earthquake on June 24 and justified not providing figures for the missing because they cannot fall “into speculation”.
“As of yesterday, 315 people remain unidentified, who could not be identified because they were neither recognized nor could we associate them with an identification upon capturing their fingerprints; that is 7% of the total number of deceased persons,” said Rodríguez in a press conference in Caracas.
The double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 has left, according to figures provided by the Chavista representative, 4,333 dead and almost 18,000 people homeless.
Venezuela has not offered an updated figure in weeks regarding those missing after the double earthquake—independent platforms place the number of people still not contacted at nearly 30,000—but Rodríguez assured that they are not hiding them, as since the day after the double earthquake they have provided the number of people who died, which is the only certainty they have.
“We cannot operate based on speculation, but rather we must operate based on reality,” justified the brother of the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, when asked by the media about a lack of information in that regard.
Furthermore, he also addressed criticisms that the debris removal process is being slow, arguing that it must be precisely that way, as the Venezuelan government still trusts that there could be people alive buried.
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“This stage (of debris removal) has to be done slowly because if it is done abruptly and heavy machinery is brought in and large quantities are moved, we don’t know if we might take a human life in that process and, on the other hand, the relatives want to recover the bodies of the family members who passed away,” argued Rodríguez.
Regarding the unidentified individuals, the Chavista rejected that they are being buried in mass graves, and explained that in La Esperanza cemetery, located about 25 kilometers from the urban center of Catia La Mar (one of the affected areas), these bodies are being buried after samples have been taken from them for future identification.
You can also read: Death toll from earthquakes in Venezuela rises to 4,333
EFE was able to confirm on Friday, from a distance, that work is underway at this cemetery for an expansion with the capacity for “about 2,000 or 3,000 graves” more, according to a worker.
In addition, the burial process is being carried out in several rows, where the name or a number for the unidentified is placed on white crosses, along with flowers and stones that mark the niche.
“A photographic impression of their teeth was taken for each of these people; for each of these deceased people, a fingerprint was taken when possible, but a skin sample was also taken to obtain a DNA sample for the loved one who comes to look for them in order to identify and hand them over,” he said.
