00:09Imagine two earthquakes back to back, 39 seconds apart.
00:15No time to run, no time to think.
00:17That is what hit Venezuela's northern coast on Wednesday night.
00:21And tonight, one region is paying a catastrophic price.
00:26Seismologists are calling it a rare doublet event.
00:29First, a magnitude 7.2 rocked Venezuela's northern coast.
00:34Then, before the dust could settle, a stronger 7.5 struck.
00:39The epicenters were off the coast of Iaracuy State, and they hit with devastating precision,
00:45aimed directly at La Guaira, the densely packed coastal state just north of Caracas.
00:52The U.S. Geological Survey had one assessment, high casualties and extensive damage.
00:57They were right.
00:59What those earthquakes left behind in La Guaira is almost beyond description.
01:04Dozens of buildings, gone.
01:06A multi-story hotel, reported to be eight to ten floors, reduced to a mound of concrete and twisted metal.
01:14Rescue workers can be seen in videos scaling rubble that was just hours ago someone's home.
01:21Other structures tilt at impossible angles, threatening to fall at any moment.
01:26In Katia Lamar, and the city of La Guaira itself, entire streets are buried under debris.
01:33Residents, many with nowhere to go, have spilled into the open air as aftershocks keep coming.
01:40Experts say La Guaira was especially exposed.
01:43Older buildings, unreinforced masonry, a coastline that amplified the seismic force, and then the doublet itself.
01:51The second quake arrived before people could even process the first.
01:56There was no warning window, no 39-second grace period, just one catastrophic blow, then another.
02:04Acting President Delcy Rodriguez called the scene in La Guaira a true tragedy,
02:09and warned that the national death toll of at least 32 killed and 700 injured does not yet fully account
02:17for what happened here.
02:19La Guaira was declared a disaster zone overnight.
02:22Search and rescue teams are working around the clock.
02:26Videos from the ground show survivors, including children, being pulled from the rubble alive.
02:32But officials are bracing for that number to climb significantly.
02:36Getting help in is its own battle.
02:39The Simón Bolívar International Airport, La Guaira's gately to the world, is heavily damaged and shut.
02:46Roads are blocked, power is out across large areas, and more than 20 aftershocks have rattled rescue teams working in
02:54structures that could collapse at any moment.
02:57Venezuela is calling this one of the worst seismic disasters in over a century.
03:02In La Guaira tonight, the search is not over.
03:06Hundreds remain unaccounted for.
03:08And beneath the rubble of that coastal city, beneath the concrete and the rebar and the dust, the hope is
03:15that more are still alive.
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