Survivors describe ‘brutal and fast’ earthquakes in Venezuela as search for missing continues

Survivors in Venezuela are describing a “brutal and fast” experience during deadly earthquakes that struck the country’s Caribbean coast, with many people still searching for relatives hours or days after the shaking as rescue teams continue to work through damaged neighborhoods. The Guardian reported that the incident is the worst of its kind in Venezuela for more than 125 years, and that the search has become a prolonged effort for families who say they lost track of multiple members during the destruction.

Among those searching is Ligia Level, who told the outlet that nearly her entire family lived in three apartment blocks along Hotel Avenue, a seafront strip lined with resorts and high-rise condos. Level said the quake’s speed and intensity turned daily life into an emergency in minutes, complicating efforts to locate relatives and assess whether those trapped inside damaged structures had survived.

The Guardian described scenes in which survivors and relatives moved between collapsed or heavily damaged buildings, asking for information and waiting for word from rescue crews. In many cases, the Guardian reported that families were not only trying to confirm whether loved ones were alive, but also trying to locate people who had been separated when the shaking began.

Local and national authorities have faced a difficult search-and-rescue challenge as teams work to free people from rubble and assess the safety of standing structures. The Guardian reported that survivors, including Level and others, have been calling for international help, arguing that the scale and urgency of the response exceeds local capacity.

The article described the search process as ongoing, with relatives continuing to plead for updates and to coordinate information among neighbors and first responders. Survivors said the quake left them with limited details about where family members were at the moment of collapse, increasing the emotional burden and turning the recovery effort into a hunt for multiple missing relatives rather than a single-person accounting.

Emergency response workers have also been dealing with the broader aftermath of a quake of this severity, including damage to housing stock and disruptions to movement and communications in affected areas along the coast. While the Guardian’s report focused on survivor accounts and the continuing search, it underscored that the longer the time passes, the more difficult it becomes to locate survivors and to confirm casualties, particularly when buildings are destroyed or partially collapsed.

As the rescue effort continues, the next steps will likely include additional coordination with international partners for specialized equipment and personnel, along with continued efforts to identify who was in each damaged building at the time of the quake. Families interviewed by the Guardian said they want faster information and clearer channels for locating missing relatives, alongside support to manage the immediate needs created by destroyed homes and displacement.