Venezuela earthquakes: Death toll climbs to 1,500 as rescue efforts continue while refinery shuts down

Rescue teams raced on Sunday to find more survivors of the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela last week, with signs of life bringing occasional relief to a grim search as tens of thousands of people remained unaccounted for. The death toll from Wednesday’s twin earthquakes neared 1,500 as foreign rescue teams poured into La Guaira, the hardest-hit state of a country long mired in political and economic crisis. Dozens of buildings collapsed into piles of sand and rubble in the coastal state, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Caracas. “Rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. Today (Sunday) we have recovered people alive and, therefore, operations are not being suspended. We always maintain hope,” interim President Delcy Rodriguez said after announcing a presidential commission to determine whether damaged buildings remain habitable. Rodriguez said school classes would remain suspended for another week and electricity service in La Guaira had been restored to 75%. Earlier, Jorge Rodriguez, president of the National Assembly, said the death toll had risen by 20 on Sunday to 1,450. He said 3,150 people remained injured, 12,721 had been displaced and 774 buildings had collapsed. “We are in critical hours, in crucial hours to continue rescuing lives and to build camps where those people who have lost their homes, or who cannot return, for whatever reason, to their residences can stay,” he said. Families and volunteers spent days pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble before more than 2,600 foreign rescue workers arrived, often complaining of limited heavy equipment and a scant official presence as hundreds of aftershocks deepened damage and kept residents on edge. The government said at least 33 people had been rescued by Saturday evening, including several children, while tens of thousands remained unaccounted for. A father and his son were also pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building on Sunday. Although authorities have reported hundreds missing or trapped, nearly 50,000 people were listed as unaccounted for on an opposition-backed website on Sunday, down slightly from 55,000 a day earlier. LIMITED TIME FOR FINDING SURVIVORS The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes could ultimately claim more than 10,000 lives. “There exists a window of roughly three days, 72 hours, where the probability afterwards decreases that you can save people alive,” said Sebastian Eugster, leader of the Swiss rescue team. His team had located several survivors beneath collapsed buildings with the help of search dogs but had been unable to reach them in time. Saturday evening marked 72 hours since the earthquakes struck. RESCUED CHILDREN U.S. rescue crews pulled an infant from the rubble on Saturday, while Colombian rescuers saved an 11-year-old boy trapped beneath about 3 meters (10 feet) of debris. Mexican rescue workers also rescued another 11-year-old boy from a collapsed building in Caraballeda. Pope Leo expressed solidarity with Venezuelans affected by the disaster during Sunday’s Angelus prayer and thanked rescue workers. A senior U.S. official said an aid package worth hundreds of millions of dollars was expected to be announced shortly, in addition to the $150 million already pledged by Washington. POWER STRAINS HIT REFINERIES The earthquakes also continued to strain Venezuela’s energy infrastructure. A power outage on Sunday forced the shutdown of the country’s largest refinery, the 645,000-barrel-per-day Amuay refinery, though electricity was restored later in the day, allowing workers to begin restarting key processing units. Amuay, part of the 955,000-bpd Paraguana Refining Center, became the second refinery to lose power following the earthquakes. Before the disaster it had been processing about 137,000 barrels of crude per day. Workers said insufficient water supplies for power plants and industries in western Falcon state were also disrupting operations. Meanwhile, the smaller 146,000-bpd El Palito refinery and the neighboring Moron Petrochemical Complex have been unable to fully restart because of unstable electricity supplies. While the oil ministry said the quakes had not affected Venezuela’s crude production or exports, fuel and petrochemical output for the domestic market could fall short of demand if refineries are unable to sustain normal operations as businesses resume activity.