Venezuela quake families left to recover bodies alone as rescue teams leave

Families in Venezuela's quake zone are digging through rubble themselves to recover relatives' bodies. Their accounts deepen anger over delayed rescue efforts and long-standing negligence.

In Short

• Families in La Guaira said they searched rubble with bare hands
• Officials reported 3,342 deaths, 16,740 injuries and thousands still missing
• International rescue teams began leaving while rebuilding plans dominated official messaging

Nearly two weeks after Venezuela's twin earthquakes, families searching for missing relatives say they have largely been left to recover bodies from the rubble on their own, even as international rescue teams prepare to leave and authorities shift attention to housing and reconstruction.

Residents in the worst-hit areas say the search for survivors has given way to a grim effort to retrieve remains, often with bare hands and basic tools. Officials said on Sunday that the death toll had risen to 3,342 and 16,740 people were injured, while more than 30,000 missing-person reports have been submitted to a website set up by the Venezuelan opposition.

Noel Mrquez, 26, said he rushed home after the building where his family lived collapsed and caught fire. Only his 17-year-old brother Leonel answered him. Mrquez and his father, who also survived, spoke to the teenager through layers of concrete as he cried for help and breathed in smoke while waiting for a crane to lift the columns pinning his legs. Mrquez said the crane never came and, after several hours, Leonel's cries fell silent.

Mrquez said the most disturbing part came later, when he tried to recover his relatives' remains with little more than his hands and a saw. He said he cut through limbs to free the bodies of Leonel and his mother, but had to leave behind his eight-month-pregnant sister, grandmother and other relatives under the debris. "It's unfair. It's inhumane, everything that is happening," Mrquez said from the overflowing makeshift morgue at La Guaira port. "We couldn't get my brother out because we didn't get a response from the state ... and after 11 days, we are still requesting a crane."

Others described the same struggle. In La Guaira, Norely Rodrguez said she was trying to recover the body of her five-year-old daughter. "I found her hand, but her torso is crushed," she said. "I want to see if I can get her out whole." Firefighter William Gomez said the work had become harder with time because many bodies were badly decomposed. "It has been difficult because the bodies are already in an advanced state of decomposition, decomposed to such an extent that many times when we try to remove them, they fall apart," he said.

Over the weekend in La Guaira, families said they saw no government civil defence crews or security personnel helping them dig. Most of those searching were civilians using their hands or basic tools such as pickaxes and shovels, sometimes with firefighters and Mexican rescuers who remain in the country. "We are the ones helping ourselves: our family. Nobody else helps us except for a few volunteers," said Yeikhary Urbina, who found the bodies of her mother and brother on Saturday under slabs of concrete, appearing to be locked in an embrace.

Search teams from Italy, Argentina, Spain and other countries have already returned home. The Venezuelan government has not called off the search for survivors, but officials have moved from sharing rescue stories on social media to announcing rebuilding plans under a programme called Venezuela Reborn. "Venezuela is entering a process of infrastructure recovery, of housing recovery," acting President Delcy Rodrguez said on state television on Saturday.

Families still looking for loved ones said the recovery effort has brought fresh trauma. Some found bodies so decomposed that they could not identify them, while others dug for days without finding anything. Geraldine Perdomo said her sister kept searching the ruins of her home for some sign confirming the deaths of her two daughters. "She kept asking, Why did God play this trick on me?" Perdomo said.

Mrquez said that on Sunday, a week after handing over the bodies, authorities told him they had located his mother and grandfather at the port morgue. But Leonel, he said, "is still missing because of the negligence here." He and other residents of public housing blocks built years ago for low-income families under former socialist leader Hugo Chvez said their complaints about negligence existed long before the disaster, and that the collapse of high-rise apartment buildings had renewed questions over construction quality.

Alexander, a 42-year-old police officer who lived in one of the towers, said the government had ignored long-standing concerns that the complex was poorly built, failed to send rescue teams in time to save his wife and three daughters, and had still not provided machinery to recover their bodies. "Not a single person from the government was here," said Alexander, who asked to be identified only by his first name because he feared retaliation as a government employee. After 11 days of searching, he found the last missing member of his family, his 12-year-old daughter. "She was waiting for me to pull her out," he said, holding her body bag.

As rescue teams leave and the government focuses on reconstruction, many Venezuelan families say their immediate reality remains the same: searching through the rubble themselves for the bodies of relatives, and trying to secure some measure of closure.

With PTI Inputs

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