00:13589 dead, nearly 3,000 injured, and the numbers are still climbing.
00:19Two earthquakes struck Venezuela within 39 seconds of each other,
00:23and what they left behind is almost impossible to describe.
00:27On Wednesday evening, northern Venezuela was hit by something it hasn't experienced in over a hundred years.
00:35And right now, rescue teams are still digging through rubble, desperately searching for anyone still alive underneath.
00:42It started just before nightfall on June 24th.
00:46A magnitude 7.2 earthquake strikes near Yumare in Yaraquy State, already a massive hit.
00:54But then, 39 seconds later, a 7.5 follows.
00:59Thirty. Nine. Seconds.
01:02That 7.5 is the most powerful earthquake to strike Venezuela in over a century.
01:09The epicenter sat roughly 120 to 160 kilometers west of Caracas, at shallow depths,
01:16which means the energy had almost no buffer before it tore through everything above ground.
01:22In Caracas, buildings swayed violently, walls cracked, multi-story structures pancaked,
01:30power went out across entire neighborhoods, people ran into the streets with nowhere to go.
01:36Now, let's talk about what this actually cost in human lives, because these numbers are staggering.
01:42At least 589 people are confirmed dead.
01:47Nearly 3,000 are injured.
01:49And those figures?
01:51Officials are already warning they will go higher.
01:54The coastal state of La Guayera took the worst of it.
01:57Over 100 buildings collapsed there alone, including a 10-story hotel that was simply reduced to rubble.
02:05Entire rows of homes destroyed, structures tilted at impossible angles,
02:11rescue workers clawing through debris with their hands in places like Carabelleta and Katia Lamar.
02:17La Guayera has been officially declared a disaster zone.
02:21Beyond the confirmed dead and injured, the missing picture is still terrifying.
02:26Earlier reports cited over 200 confirmed trapped.
02:30Tens of thousands in affected zones were still being accounted for as of the latest updates.
02:36More than 20 aftershocks have hit since the original quakes,
02:40making every rescue operation more dangerous for the workers on the ground
02:44and more deadly for anyone still buried.
02:47Acting President Delce Rodriguez went on air and called the situation in La Guayera a real tragedy,
02:54and said that initial numbers didn't even fully capture how bad the hardest-hit coastal areas actually are.
03:01Here's the brutal context.
03:03The USGS issued a red alert, their highest level,
03:08warning of mass casualties and economic losses likely running into the billions.
03:13And Venezuela was already fragile going into this.
03:17Aging infrastructure, buildings that weren't built to modern safety standards,
03:21limited resources for large-scale disaster response.
03:25When a century-scale earthquake hits a country already under strain,
03:30the damage multiplies fast.
03:32Hospitals are overwhelmed.
03:34Gas lines have been shut off across multiple areas to prevent fires on top of everything else.
03:41Roads and airports have been compromised,
03:43slowing the flow of aid to the people who need it most.
03:46The world is responding.
03:48The US, Mexico, India, Spain, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador,
03:54rescue teams and medical personnel are either on the ground or on the way.
03:59The United Nations has activated emergency response mechanisms.
04:03Venezuelan communities abroad, including in Florida, have started collecting donations.
04:08But the scale of what's needed is enormous,
04:10and time is the enemy when people are buried under collapsed buildings.
04:16589 lives lost, nearly 3,000 hurt, and the digging continues.
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