Venezuela Earthquakes: Survivors Describe 'Concrete Breaking Off Walls'

The Devastating Earthquakes in Venezuela

On Thursday morning, Billy Ebrin set out to search for bodies. He’d spent a short, anxious sleep in his silver Aveo car, too afraid to go back to his seventh-floor apartment in Caracas, Venezuela. Just hours earlier, he had been startled by the piercing alarm on his mobile phone. There was an uncomfortable pause. Then, the building began to violently shake.

The Earthquakes' Fury

His three dogs darted beneath the beds, terrified and trembling, while Ebrin took shelter beneath a doorframe and began to pray. “I thought I was going to die. You could hear pieces of concrete breaking off the walls,” he said. Two back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela with little warning shortly after 6pm local time (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, triggering panic as people scrambled for safety.

The Scale of the Disaster

The first was a 7.2-magnitude quake, followed by another that reached 7.5 on the nine-point Richter scale, both considered major seismic disasters. When the shaking stopped, Ebrin rushed to the ground floor along with hundreds of others fleeing their buildings. “People were bumping into each other in the confusion: elderly people, people carrying their pets, even squirrels and parrots. There were people in their underwear,” he told Al Jazeera. “It was all terrifying.”

The Aftermath and Response

Venezuela’s National Assembly has confirmed that at least 188 people have died in the country. But the United States Geological Survey predicts the death toll could run into the thousands. Acting President Delcy Rodriguez called on the international community and Venezuela’s private sector to assist in the rescue operation. A number of countries have said they will send assistance, including Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the US, Qatar and Argentina.

The Road to Recovery

As attention turns from rescue efforts to the extent of the damage, engineers are beginning to assess why some buildings suffered far more than others — and whether the country was adequately prepared, given the frequency of seismic activity. Jesus Vasquez, a civil engineer in Caracas, explained that older buildings and the way they were designed will have had an impact on the amount of damage caused. But from the 1950s, buildings that complied with regulations were designed to be earthquake-resistant.