{"id":513338,"date":"2026-07-05T18:12:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/venezuelans-lead-the-search-for-missing-persons-in-the-earthquake-rubble\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T18:20:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T22:20:45","slug":"venezuelans-lead-the-search-for-missing-persons-in-the-earthquake-rubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/international\/venezuelans-lead-the-search-for-missing-persons-in-the-earthquake-rubble\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelans lead the search for missing persons in the earthquake rubble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Caraballeda\/Playa Grande (Venezuela).-<\/em><\/strong> In the collapsed buildings of La Guaira there are no longer large groups and almost everyone who remains are Venezuelans<\/a>\u2014mostly volunteers and family members\u2014who continue searching and lifting the heavy rubble to look for the hundreds of people presumed to still be buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mijita, where are you? I can’t see you,”<\/em><\/strong> shouts Marco Contreras at the entrance of an underground parking lot that they only managed to uncover yesterday. A very strong smell comes from inside, and the spaces where the vehicles are located are completely crushed by the ceiling of the first floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This elderly gentleman has been searching for eleven days for his sister, who lived alone with a little dog on the first floor of this building, of which not a single part remains standing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more: Delcy Rodr\u00edguez replaces the Minister of Transport in the midst of the earthquake emergency<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jos\u00e9 Riva is with his group of miners trying to dig holes to search for the missing, and it was they who removed the slab that covered the access to the parking lot. He tells EFE that they have recovered ten bodies, but they were told that there were 25 people who died in this building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have brought machinery from their mining areas to be able to start clearing rubble, which is currently the greatest demand of the relatives who have spent many days watching how international rescuers\u2014of whom only a small group remains\u2014passed by their buildings with technology but could not find signs of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than a million tons of debris<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The streets of the municipalities hit by the brutal 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes, which have so far left 3,342 dead, are increasingly emptying of people and filling up with cranes, backhoes, loaders, and dump trucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Venezuelan government estimates that there are 190 collapsed buildings and, on July 1, calculated the debris generated in the town of Caraballeda alone at 1.25 million tons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlos Garc\u00eda, a machinery operator, arrived in La Guaira the day after the earthquake and is looking for someone to lend him excavators to help. He tries to dig holes “little by little” in case there is still someone alive: “I’m going little by little and that’s how we pull out the bodies; I’ve already found 8 and we’re still at it,”<\/em><\/strong> he explains to EFE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Here we have all helped each other”<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most of those collaborating on these difficult tasks are volunteers like Arc\u00e1ngel Orojoite, a soldier who is on leave and has traveled to Playa Grande, the other area affected by the earthquake, in Catia la Mar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborate in the work at a collapsed 12-story building where several backhoes are working, along with a crane provided by a neighbor who is searching for his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The psychological impact is strong because we are talking about pulling out ten bodies a day, eleven, and it is tough, but here we have all helped each other,” this young man tells EFE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They have managed to pull several people out alive, but they estimate that there must be about 120 people deceased in this tower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So far we have done what our hands and our tools have allowed us to do, but we have reached a point where we indispensably need heavy machinery,” explains this soldier, just seconds before two large machines, sent for by the army, arrive down the street in front of him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the lower area of this building, a large excavator lowers its arm and the shovel begins to dig. Once, twice, three times. And it will repeat this many more times until they manage to remove all the tons of rubble left behind by the earthquakes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caraballeda\/Playa Grande (Venezuela).- In the collapsed buildings of La Guaira there are no longer large groups and almost everyone who remains are Venezuelans\u2014mostly volunteers and family members\u2014who continue searching and lifting the heavy rubble to look for the hundreds of people presumed to still be buried. “Mijita, where are you? I can’t see you,” shouts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":514240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[43601,44182,40391,39769,40853,40583],"class_list":["post-513338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","tag-breakingnews","tag-cover","tag-earthquake","tag-missing-persons","tag-thetruthnewspaper","tag-venezuelans"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-29xE","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/ef78f900-7567-11f1-bd47-e1ebd62de3b7.jpg.webp","dum_api":{"author_name":"EFE","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/1200px-EFE_logo.svg-96x96.png","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/ef78f900-7567-11f1-bd47-e1ebd62de3b7.jpg.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}