Venezuela earthquakes: Death toll passes 1,400

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0:39Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service, coming to you live from London. I'm James Kamarasami. And we begin today in Venezuela, where the official death toll after Wednesday's two powerful earthquakes, which struck within 40 seconds of each other, has climbed to 1 ,430, A further 3 ,238 people are reported to have been injured. But it's a figure of 50 ,000 missing people in a landscape scarred by completely flattened buildings that is adding to the trauma of a population which has faced plenty of challenges in recent years. The BBC's Will Grant is in the capital, Caracas, and he begins his report in a part of the city he knows well.

1:24the caracas neighborhoods of altamira and los palos grandes are some of the most seismic in the city earthquakes even small ones are often felt there and the two which struck venezuela earlier this week were anything but small feels quite surreal being back here i lived on this street and there is an utterly flattened building i can see rescue workers sifting through the rubble all day they have been using earth moving equipment to take out massive concrete slabs and allow these teams to get back in a little more safely and now one of these trucks is about to drive out carrying with it some of the rubble of these homes I used to live next to

2:20Fortunately, my old building is still intact, as is its amiable long-standing caretaker Pedro, who sat with the elderly neighbours as they recovered from the shock. All of them agreed this was the worst natural disaster they'd ever seen in Venezuela. On every corner in this neighbourhood, There are people who are sleeping out because they have nowhere else to stay. Their homes are now uninhabitable. It feels like a bit of a lottery. I mean, a lot of these homes were considered safe, and yet now, if they're not flattened like the one I'm looking at, they certainly can't be lived in again.

3:06Among those sleeping on a mattress under a tarpaulin was Giancarlos Roa. His wife and daughter were with him after their building was so badly cracked they may never be able to go back. He's worked for decades as a policeman, and now at 50, he says, the tears rolling down his cheeks, he's not sure he even knows how to rebuild his family's life again.

3:30But despite his dire circumstances, Giancarlos knows he's still one of the lucky ones.

3:41Interim President Delcy Rodriguez told the nation that hundreds more had died with thousands of people injured. We've also rescued dozens of people alive and are grateful that they'll be able to embrace their families and loved ones once again, she said. Those success stories have included a toddler recently pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building. However, there's a staggering 50 ,000 people estimated to still be missing. We are still all in shock. I think we need more days and we need to accept all the help we can get from abroad. It's been a really serious tragedy here. Caracas resident Zahira Castron is a musician who lived and studied in the UK for years.

4:21She says people increasingly see the government's response as inadequate. We're all pretty frustrated here because the government is not showing what they should be, you know, a display of serious amount of help. And it's actually we, the Venezuelans, who are helping each other. We live here in a society that's grown up into helping each other. We don't depend on the government. That doesn't exist for us anymore. One of Mexico's search and rescue teams, called Los Topos, meaning the moles, stepped out of the airport in Venezuela to warm applause. International help is coming to this stricken nation, little by little.

5:05Whether it's rescue workers and sniffer dogs from the UK and the US, or medical teams from Cuba and Spain, they all have their work cut out. But time to find any more survivors buried beneath the rubble is fast running out. Will Grant reporting from Caracas. Well, Will is currently on his way to the worst affected region, the coastal region of La Guayra, in a bus that's been laid on by the Venezuelan government. And we spoke to him just before he boarded it. Well, it feels like the government is trying to impose a bit of an order on the chaos. Basically, they relaxed their normally very strict visa rules and basically let in journalists from around the world to cover this tragedy.

5:45Now they are basically crediting us in order for everybody to be accompanied, escorted on state buses to the worst affected zone of La Guaida. I think that it's been anarchy down there so far from what we hear with all manner of rescue workers, grieving relatives, relatives waiting for information, desperation, just chaos. And I think they want to sort of corral people a bit more. There's some tension about that with the media, as you can imagine, who don't like to be told where to go and where to stand. And we're going to see how it works by joining them on this bus and seeing what exactly we're allowed to see.

6:22And it is indeed a clear understanding of just how bad things are in that particular region or coast. I hear all the caveats about what may or may not happen, and I'm sure on these occasions things are pretty chaotic anyway. But what are you being told? How controlled is all this going to be when you get there? I think things are very complex. The picture alone of just how many buildings have been flattened in La Guaida, it's over 100. The number of missing is estimated to be around 50 ,000, which is just a shocking number. Venezuelans are really still coming to terms with that. The sense is that people are calling out names, they're looking for their loved ones, pulling out rubble with their own bare hands if they have to, through the night.

7:07The Mexican teams are there, the teams from Brazil, all around the world they've arrived and are pitching in as best they can. But with each hour that passes, the hopes fade. The first 72 hours are crucial and we're getting very, very close to that. So it's already a question of hope, really, for most people. Staying up all night, vigils, praying, only to sort of not get that miracle they're hoping for. There have been some children, babies pulled from the rubble, which buoys everybody's spirits. But those instances are becoming less frequent and they're becoming just rarer, fewer. Will Grant in Venezuela.

7:47Well, let's hear from one of the teams that's already on the scene. John Morrison is with the Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department in Virginia. He's part of the US Disaster Assistance Response Team that is in La Guayra province. So our team arrived here yesterday, Friday mid-afternoon. We arrived to an airport that was a little further away because the closer in airport was closed, the runway was closed. So we had about a two to three hour drive to get where we are. And we set up a base camp and immediately sent out some what we call recon teams. And their job is to go where victims may be in these collapsed buildings.

8:23And our team specializes in rescuing those deeply entombed in those reinforced concrete buildings. So touchdown, set up camp and straight away off they went. What was that first recce like? What did they see? You know, it's very much like some of the larger scale earthquakes that we've responded to in the past, including, you know, Turkey just a few years ago. So our team trains for what we've encountered is basically what we expected, which is these large high-rise buildings that have collapsed. And when they do collapse, they leave large void spaces, which then has the potential for many victims being trapped.

8:58That is our job to rescue them. And just to be clear, as of now, as we are talking, have you been able to rescue anyone? We're on several different work sites right now with the potential for live victims, and we're very optimistic that we'll find some in the very near future. Does that mean you've already had evidence of people? I wouldn't say that quite yet. We're very optimistic, but, you know, these buildings are very large, and these victims, when they're in there, are typically very deeply entombed. So I would be presumptuous in saying that. And given your experience, how long have you got, to be frank?

9:31It all depends on if the building collapses and somebody happens to have a water store near them or, excuse me, like, you know, storage water bottles or something like that. It's a very long period of time. So we're going to work as long as we think there's viable victims out there. And as long as the local emergency managers here need our assistance. I was going to ask you about that. How is the coordination working? Clearly, there are quite a few teams coming in from different countries. How is that all operating at the moment? One of the amazing things about being in the humanitarian space is the ability to countries and nationalities aside and just work for the good of the victim.

10:08So we've been working with local first responders here, the bomberos, along with other international teams that are here. And it really is seamless because we're all sort of putting our egos aside and doing what's best for the victim. Yes, I mean, without getting into geopolitics, when Venezuela is concerned, it is a country that's had huge challenges over the last few decades. Are there extra challenges going to a place like Venezuela when something like this happens? In our mind, no. We're here to perform search and rescue operations, and that's entirely what we're focused on. So, you know, I don't get paid enough to deal with politics.

10:40Regardless of nationality or politics, we're all just here to help save lives. That's John Morrison from the U.S. Disaster Assistance Response Team. He's in the Venezuelan province of La Guayra. Now, Lois Pace is the regional director for the Americas for the International Federation of the Red Cross and she's been telling me about the experience of her colleagues who are working in La Guara. First of all, were they concerned about possible aftershocks? Yeah, we're quite concerned yesterday. I think they had the highest level tremor that they've experienced since the original two quakes. So we remain concerned about those aftershocks.

11:18I think, you know, we do just what we tell everyone else to do. which is know what to do and where to go when this happens. Take cover, ensure you're not around these tall buildings, especially buildings that might still be standing but are very damaged. We're quite concerned that we'll see and have more buildings collapse, frankly, and that'll make these recovery efforts even harder, unfortunately. These buildings were already high-rises, many of these residences, and if more of the cement falls, then I think we'll have an even harder time really removing that and rebuilding. We have seen images of people being rescued from the rubble.

11:55Some quite incredible images of these completely collapsed buildings, yet people have survived. What are you hearing? Are people still being rescued, I mean, away from the cameras? Yeah, I think so. I mean, there's one, goodness, there's one story that we heard from our team yesterday. we, like I said, have a team on the ground and I have a team of about, you know, a fairly small team that supports the Venezuelan Red Cross. But we have someone in our IT department whose entire family went missing under the rubble of a building. And he was personally part of the rescue team that pulled them out.

12:33And so he saved his family with his bare hands. And I don't think anyone captured that because I think we were all trying to help him. But it's something that will sit with us and live in our memories. There's other stories of Venezuelans singing to survivors that remain trapped, right? And, you know, just trying to encourage them as they stand under the rubble. That was Lois Pace, who is the Regional Director for the Americas for the International Federation of the Red Cross. She was speaking to me from Panama. And if you want to keep updated on the latest from the earthquakes in Venezuela, you can go to our live page on the BBC News website, bbc.com forward slash news.

13:17Latest post I see there with the rather sobering numbers that the US Geological Survey has estimated could be the final death toll. And they're talking between 10 and 100 ,000 people. That is an estimate. You're listening to News Hour from the BBC World

13:34service. And coming up later on in the program, after the US Supreme Court removes the protected status from hundreds of thousands of Haitians in America, we hear from one woman who could be affected. I built my whole life here. I come here when I was 16, now I'm 31. So it's just like I don't know where to go or what to do. You can hear the full interview with that woman in about 20 minutes time. Our headlines at this hour. Despite desperate rescue efforts are continuing in Venezuela three days after the country was hit by twin earthquakes the number confirmed dead has now passed 1400 and more heat records have been smashed in Europe with Germany the Czech Republic and Denmark all registering their hottest day on record.

14:36You're listening to the BBC World Service. This is NewsHour coming to you live from London with James Kamara-Sami. More records tumbling across Europe today as the heatwave continues to bring extreme temperatures across the continent. For a third day in a row, Switzerland has experienced its hottest ever day in June. That's led to nuclear reactors there being switched off. It also means that Swiss glaciers have been melting unusually quickly, as I've been hearing from Dr Matthias Huss, who's head of glacier monitoring in Switzerland. According to our data, we're losing as much water from the Swiss glaciers to fill up one Olympic swimming pool every six seconds.

15:16And this now lasts for two weeks. So as long as this heatwave is ongoing and day and night every six seconds. That is a very vivid image. Just explain how you are able to measure that. We have some measurement sites on about 20 glaciers in Switzerland where we go on site and measure how much ice is lost vertically at some poles drilled into the ice. These data are then combined with some numerical models that are able to extrapolate this to all glaciers in Switzerland. We also use satellite imagery to constrain these models, and therefore we can compute quite accurately how much water the glaciers are losing right now.

15:56And you have a day in the year, don't you? A tipping point day, if you like. Perhaps you can explain what that is, and I think it's coming earlier and earlier at the moment, isn't it? It's this Glacier Loss Day. It's a bit similar as the Earth's Overshoot Day. This Glacier Loss Day is going to occur next Monday, most likely. It's the day when all snow reserves accumulated over the winter have been used up and we're entering the phase where we are kind of losing old ice. So every day from next Monday onwards is really contributing to the unsustainable loss of ice. And this is, of course, worrying because it's very early.

16:36It's even almost before the main part of the summer. So all the rest of the summer will contribute to unsustainable loss. How does this compare to recent years? There is a very clear trend to this day occurring earlier and earlier. We had one record in the year 22, which was shattering all previous records so far. Then this day was still three days earlier than this year. However, in all other years, it's normally occurring in late July and August. It should actually not occur at all if the glacier would be healthy. But we've seen this day occurring always earlier and earlier. Is there any way to get the glacier healthy again?

17:19Will that depend on winter conditions and snowfall? Well, it's snowfall on the one hand, but even more importantly is the temperatures during the summer. And we've seen a strong increase in the summer temperatures over the last years. And the combination of dry winters as this one and hot summers, this is the worst for the glaciers. So the biggest rivers in Europe are sourcing in the Alps. So the Rhine flowing northwards, the Rhône flowing to the Mediterranean, the Danube. And all of those are sourced by glacial meltwater and snow meltwater. So if the ice and the snow are declining in the mountains, we have also impacts going far beyond the mountains.

18:03And this has impacts on the transport of goods over the rivers, for the cooling of nuclear power plants, obviously also for irrigation. So this water that is coming from the mountains is needed for many aspects. Dr Matthias Huss, who's head of Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland, or the acronym GLAMOS.

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19:06Washington Wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at schwab.com slash Washington Wise. That's schwab.com slash Washington Wise. Welcome back to News Hour. Coming up next, we'll hear about the latest developments in and around the Strait of Hormuz and we'll get an assessment of what that could mean for the truce in the Middle East. First though, a team of researchers in the United States are turning to our furry friends to help tackle an invasive species. The BBC's Riley Farrell has been to Virginia to find out more.

19:55There's an invasion spreading across the United States that could cost millions. But today, standing on a berry farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains, I'm witnessing one of the most unexpected defenses against it. A group of very good dogs. Okay, so this is Fozzie. He was puppy trained to be a service dog and then washed out of the program. My dog is Finch. She is a lovely mixed breed dog that I rescued about eight years ago. This is Hermes and he is almost 10 border collie. He has a birthday on Sunday. These pet pooches are trained to detect the egg masses of spotted lanternflies, an invasive bug species ravaging the U.S.

20:52Spotted lanternflies feed on plant sap, excreting a substance called honeydew, which causes the growth of thick, black, sooty mold. This mold ruins the vegetation. With basically no natural predators here and a broad diet, these insects threaten vineyards, orchards, hardwood forests, and urban ecosystems. systems. This problem calls for a creative solution. And for Dr. Erika Feuerbacher, a professor at Virginia Tech, the idea struck her on a hike. So my background is in canine behavior, but I would go hiking with my dogs and I knew about conservation dogs and I always thought, wouldn't it be fun if I could contribute to solving environmental issues while I'm playing with my dog?

21:39And I figured there were more people than just me that was interested in that. Any breed can be an olfactory detection dog. So they're all really useful. If our dogs are detecting one lanternfly at a time, it's kind of a slow process. But with the egg masses, we can get, you know, 50 or 60 that we can scrape off at a time. So we're going to get a little more bang for our buck. It honestly looks like a game, but it is early detection. Stopping them early can stop the spread. The egg masses are oftentimes how they are being moved around. so they've laid egg masses on a lumber shipment that's moving somewhere else.

22:12So if we can detect that egg mass on that lumber shipment and be able to scrape it off, we're going to prevent the lanternflies from spreading further. I think it can be overwhelming and you don't know where to step in and help your community. And I think these little things, like teaming with your dog for a local detection target, can be really useful. And you feel like we get enough of these together, right? And we can have a big impact. Good boy. That was Dr. Erica Foyer-Backer ending that report from Virginia by the BBC's Riley Farrell. You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour coming to you live from London.

22:57You're listening to the BBC World Service and this is NewsHour coming to you live from our studios in central London with James Kimarasamy. No one expected it to be diplomatic plane sailing, but there had been hopes that the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the United States and Iran about a week ago, vague though it was, would have created enough diplomatic space to allow shipping to resume unimpeded for the time being through the Strait of Hormuz. But the events of the past couple of days have reminded everyone of the fragility of the ceasefire included in that agreement. For the second time, an oil tanker travelling through the waterway has been struck.

23:32Meanwhile, Bahrain has accused Iran of carrying out a drone attack on its territory. There have been no reports of injuries from either incident, which follow an exchange of fire between the Iranians and the Americans. The BBC's World News correspondent, Joe Inwood, has been monitoring the day's developments. We know that the UK Maritime Organization has said that some sort of projectile hit a Panamanian tanker going through the Strait of Hormuz. Don't know more information than that. And Bahrain has said that a number of Iranian drones have attacked their territory. Now, the Iranians have said they were attacking US military bases.

24:09Now, all of this is in the context of American strikes that took place on Iran, on their kind of drone facilities and on radar posts on Friday. And those were themselves a response to an Iranian drone attack on another cargo ship going through the strait on Thursday. So what we've seen is a couple of days here of these sort of tit-for-tat attacks. They don't seem like they're escalatory. It doesn't seem like either side is really trying to sort of test the other one particularly, but just to set their boundaries. First, the Iranians saying, if you want to go through the strait, you need to coordinate with us.

24:46The Americans saying, if you use force, we'll use more force back. And then the Iranians retaliating again. Do we know what it is doing to the movement of ships through the strait, though? Presumably people will be looking at this and taking some decisions. Yes, so there was an operation, I understand, I think on the Friday, they were looking at trying to get some of the stranded sailors out from the Strait of Hormuz. That was postponed as a consequence of this. And in a way, this whole Iranian strike on the Thursday seems to be aimed at saying, look, we've said the Strait of Hormuz can be opened, but it can be opened on our terms.