As Venezuelans struggle to find earthquake survivors, many blame the government

0:00This message comes from the podcast Pod Save America. Every week, John Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Jon Favreau, and Dan Pfeiffer dive deep into political news with guests from across the progressive spectrum. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. Today on State of the World, as Venezuelans struggle to find earthquake survivors, many blame the government. You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Monday, June 29th. I'm Greg Dixon. The death toll continues to rise in Venezuela after twin earthquakes struck last week, devastating coastal areas.

0:44The government says more than 1 ,700 people have been killed. Tens of thousands are still missing. In today's episode, we're on the ground in Venezuela to get an understanding of the rescue effort. In a few minutes, we'll hear frustration at the Venezuelan government's response, which many consider slow and poorly coordinated. But first, hope. Throughout the most affected areas, rescue crews and families are still digging through rubble, looking for a miracle. NPR's Eder Peralta brings us to one rescue effort. As soon as rescue crews suspect life, they rush into action. Most of them are just volunteers in high-vis vests and jeans and t-shirts.

1:32Before them is what used to be a 12-story building. When the earthquakes shook, the whole structure slipped from its foundation and the floors crumbled on top of each other. The rescuers break concrete, they try to cut a metal gate with a handheld saw, and then someone hears something. Telling everybody to be quiet and silent. The motorcycles turn off their engines, the workers put down their hammers, and one of them, three stories up, screams into the large void in the middle of the rubble.

2:15Where the rescue crew, if you're alive, make some noise.

2:24They've identified someone, a man says. They've heard something. They've heard something here. And they rush back to work, trying to remove the metal gate by tying it to a truck.

2:43Jesus Javier Fajardo came from Maracaibo to help with the rescue effort. He says these moments of hope can also be difficult. The day before, in a building down the road, they thought they heard calls for help. Three people put their ears to the ground and they heard moans of pain. But they couldn't reach them. In another building, they found a woman pinned by a concrete slab.

3:12I gave her water. We had a conversation. We were there for two or three hours. But we couldn't release her, and she died. This is a scene that repeats itself across a wide swath of Venezuela's northern coast. Dozens of other countries have sent rescue crews to Venezuela, and the government has deployed the military and other security forces to help. But it's just not enough. And as the hours go by, the hopeful noises coming from the buildings begin to dim. The whole coast starts smelling of death.

3:55La Belo Horizonte used to be a 16-story building that faced the Caribbean. J. Ludavila and Mariana Zambrano sat on a curb staring at the rubble. Their sister and her son were on the 14th floor.

4:15Yesterday, said Davila, a rescue crew came, looked, and said this was too much, too dangerous for them. But it's our family members who are in there, says Zambrano, so we don't care if this is risky. Davila lowers her gaze. They haven't heard any noises coming from the building today. What they need, she says, is heavy equipment. They say if they use heavy equipment, the bodies can be mutilated. But at this point, what are we going to find? We at least need their bodies. The heat, the dust, the dying hope, however, don't stop families. They still climb through the rubble. They use mallets to break the concrete.

5:13They use handsaws to cut through five-inch rebars. They stop listening for sounds and are instead guided by the smell of death. And as they dig, the authorities do arrive. They're no longer looking for survivors, though, only for bodies to recover. Eder Peralta, NPR News, La Guayra, Venezuela. Further down the Venezuelan coast, NPR's John Otis is finding that even as rescue efforts are ongoing, frustration at the government's response is growing. A backhoe is digging through the ruins of a 12-story building that collapsed here in the coastal town of Los Corales. But the government backhoe operator never showed up, so local residents had to pay for one.

6:02Such delays are costing lives, says Rosalia Bustamante, who lost several friends who were inside the building. There were people in the ruins responding when we called out to them, she says, but now they're dead. Neighborhood volunteers have pulled more than a dozen corpses out of the building. But lacking body bags, they resort to garbage bags and plastic sheets. In front of me, rescue workers are laying out the corpse of a dead child underneath a palm tree. Venezuela has thousands of police and army troops, but they have been slow to arrive and some have been accused of looting. They've also set up roadblocks and are demanding government permits from doctors and rescue workers.

7:01Construction worker Julio Melendez tried to bring in a jackhammer to help search for survivors. But the process took two days because police demanded a government permit and the sales receipt for the jackhammer.

7:22The only thing the authorities do is get in the way, he says. Politics also got in the way the last time this part of Venezuela faced disaster.

7:36In 1999, amid mudslides that killed at least 10 ,000 people, then-President Hugo Chavez rejected U.S. help to rebuild roads and bridges, instead relying on help from his communist allies in Cuba. Now, aid workers are arriving from all over the world, But Venezuela is in far worse shape. People here have endured an economic meltdown, plus a crackdown on their democracy. All this has prompted more than a quarter of the population to flee the country, including large numbers of health workers and engineers.

8:18Retired Venezuelan Army General Antonio Riveros says the country's armed forces should have been deployed immediately with trucks, generators, portable lights and water systems. That didn't happen. The act of military employees has been induced to find a enemy always in the population. Rather than helping people, Rivero says, the security forces are trained to view them as a threat that could rise up against the country's repressive government. After U.S. troops ousted authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in January, he was replaced by acting President Delcy Rodriguez. She's widely blamed for the government's haphazard response to the earthquake.

9:01But it's also allowed her to further delay a transition to democracy. No one is seriously talking about elections anymore. That is all postponed indefinitely now. That's Orlando Perez, a Latin America expert at the University of North Texas at Dallas. He points out, however, that earthquakes can upend governments, as was the case in Nicaragua. There, dictator Anastasio Somoza stole so much relief aid after a 1972 earthquake that it gave a boost to Sandinista rebels who toppled him. That quake really was the beginning of the end of the Somoza regime. In Venezuela, anger is also rising.

9:49This woman, whose nephew died in the quake, blames the slow reaction of government officials.

9:59They are damned dogs, she says. Nearby, volunteers continue to improvise as they search for signs of life. At one collapsed building, they attach a cable to a chunk of concrete, then hit the gas to try to remove it. But it barely budges. For NPR News, I'm John Otis in Los Corales, Venezuela.

10:33That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. One of the world's most famous art detectives was on the hunt for a stolen Van Gogh. He turned to an unlikely source for help. You have born soccer players, born teachers, born policemen. I'm a born burglar. On the Sunday Story, how an art thief and an art detective set out to recover a missing masterpiece. Listen now to the Sunday Story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. This week, Shorewave is answering all your questions about Ebola and how cuts to global health funding have made it harder to contain. When you no longer have your front line, eyes and ears on the ground, it's very easy.

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