The Venezuelan Earthquakes

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1:11Visit schwab.com to learn more. Hello, I'm James Reynolds. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. In BBC Conversations, we bring people together to share their experiences. This time, we bring together people who survived the two devastating earthquakes in Venezuela.

1:37Venezuela is still reeling from two massive earthquakes which struck near the capital Caracas on the 24th of June. The first quake hit just after six in the evening. The second came just 39 seconds later, and that one was even stronger than the first. As buildings collapsed, the impact was devastating. As we record this programme on Friday lunchtime, the official death toll stands at over 2 ,500. But tens of thousands are still missing, so the final number will be much higher. Within 24 hours, we heard from three people who were in the capital when the ground beneath their feet began to shake.

2:19Heather is a Canadian teacher who works for the British School in Caracas. And two Venezuelans also joined us, Alirio and also Jesus. He was visiting his parents when the earthquake hit. I was at my home with my parents. My dad is a patient of cancer. He is in a really hard condition right now. and it was really scary. I was just talking with my mom and everything started to shake, the table. And actually I was watching outside of the window and I saw this big building that is across the street moving from one side to another. And then my mom started to scream. She hugged me and I started to hear screams all around.

3:04And then everything passed. We started to watch people coming outside of buildings, trying to find some place to be safe. And for us, it was really hard because I live in an 18th floor. There was no energy, so we can't use the elevators and my dad can't walk. So we were just trapped inside of the building. At the same time, some pipes broke and there was water all around inside of the building. And a few minutes later, I started to receive some phone calls to watch social media, to receive some messages through WhatsApp. And I started to understand what was happening. So there were buildings collapsing everywhere in Caracas, really close to my home.

3:53A building collapsed. Actually, I'm here right now. Some friends live over there. So there are around nine persons missing. we are trying to collaborate with some of the security forces and I don't know we are trying to do our best to support the people in this emergency. You said that your father was unable to leave the part of the building you were on so you stayed with him? Yes I stayed with him all night I just came out of home like a few minutes ago when a nurse that worked for us came home I helped my mom I helped my dad so right now I have the possibility to walk around but yesterday I was just there you know just waiting Is it safe for them in the building?

4:39Yes there's no infrastructure damage in our building but in Caracas there you know this is crazy this is a tragedy you know to saw buildings that you grow up washing there or living around they are just nothing you know it just does this is crazy Heather can you describe the moments in which you experienced the earthquake, please? I was on my way to meet my friend for dinner, and suddenly the street just started moving. It almost felt as though I was surfing, like it wasn't even shaking, it was almost swaying. And it took everyone a couple seconds to realise what on earth was happening to get away from tall buildings.

5:19And quite near me, there were big chunks of building falling off, kind of smoke and dust everywhere, and people were just freaking out, had no idea what to do, really. You ended up helping people to reach safety? When the shock stopped, we decided to meet on a large road. And then that's when the aftershock happened. I've lived in Egypt, so I'm used to traffic. So I just ran across the street. Cars were not stopping. So I just ran into the middle of the road in front of a bus and just put my arms up and just started screaming like, stop, stop, and waving for people to cross the street. There were a couple of people carrying one young man.

5:58Maybe he was injured. So I had a bus inching towards me and I was just standing my ground, just trying to help get people far away from the buildings because pieces of building were falling down. So we were just worried that they were going to collapse on everyone. How did you decide to take on such a role? Did that just come instinctively? I'm a teacher, so I guess maybe I just help people. People needed to cross the street and I was going to make that happen. Alirio, you were with your boss in a downstairs car park when the earthquake hit. Level four of a basement, picking up my car with my boss, when all of a sudden she started the car and the car started shaking.

6:38And she was just like, Alirio, what is that? I mean, what is wrong with this car? And I was just standing outside the vehicle and I just pretty much scream at her. This is an earthquake. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the car. And that was just the beginning because I started to feel just the vibration. But then it was on a large scale. It was actually shaking and swaying. And I started to see the pillars of the building moving like like like a Lego piece. You know, they were moving sideways. And I was telling her just like, listen, we've got to find some clearance. You know, we need to find some open skies.

7:16Well, we decided just to wait until just it calmed down a little bit. It seems to me that it lasted like one minute. Probably I'm exaggerating. Probably it was less than that. For me, it was probably like one, two minutes shaking, but pretty badly. And we waited until it just sort of like stabilized a little bit. And we grabbed our cars and we just drive away. When I was coming out of the parking lot, security guards were all outside in the open air. And they told me that the building had had some cracks and that some of the tiles were just falling off. And from there, I just drove off to meet my family, my daughters and my wives.

7:55Alirio, Heather and Jesus. We spoke to them just a day after the twin earthquakes. And in a moment, we'll hear from four more survivors over a week on about the reality of losing homes and losing friends. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

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8:57As you'll hear in our next conversation, there's been anger in Venezuela at what many people see as a totally inadequate government response to the disaster. Although rescue teams from all over the world have worked tirelessly to find survivors, there was at first a lack of heavy machinery in the crucial hours and days after the quakes struck. Many people had no choice but to search through the rubble using only their bare hands. More than a week on now, they face new obstacles. Thousands need somewhere to stay. La Guayra is north of Caracas. It's on the Caribbean coast. It was one of the hardest hit areas.

9:39All of our guests have a connection with the country's largest port. El Aiza works in Caracas but has been teaming up with international rescuers in La Guayra. Gonzalo has also been visiting from the capital and helping with the relief effort. Victoria is a journalism student from La Guayra living in Caracas. We're also joined by her friend Barbara who still lives in La Guayra with her parents. Their family home was destroyed. She is currently staying with her sister. I don't know how to describe the feeling like that's my own life in those walls so they just fall i don't know how to explain that i feel like i don't have anything at all my mom cry every day because she worked so hard for that home so now that we don't have it it's like what we had left but you are safe at the moment and you are with your family and your dog, and you survived.

10:38Yes. Let's cross to journalism student Victoria. You're from La Guayra, the area worst hit. Tell me how you experienced the earthquake, please. This week, it's supposed to be my graduation from the university. So that day I was in a mall buying my dress. And I was with my boyfriend, a friend, his mother. It was a really nice day. And my mom was in my house in La Guayra. I was in Caracas. So when the earthquake happened, I thought it was just in Caracas. I never crossed my mind that La Guayra could be more affected than Caracas. I wasn't really scared about my mom. Like, I tried to call her twice, but there was no sign-out phone.

11:24And I was okay. Like, I was making jokes, recording videos with my friends. Oh, earthquake! You know, because it was like, oh, a funny thing. So I went to, with my boyfriend to La Guayra, to my house. And then at some point we realized that all the streets were collapsed. So we took another way to go to my house and the same thing. Like there was police and people and we couldn't follow or wait, go to my home because all the buildings were collapsed. In that moment, I was, you know, really, really worried. and the streets were like chaos. We parked the car and we start walking to my house. At some point, I had to scramble over the role of a collapsed building to go to my house.

12:16And the more closer I get to my house, it was worse and worse and worse. And then I came to my neighborhood. It's Puerto Viejo and I was really affected. Next to my house, there's an hotel and the hotel fell apart. A residential building fell apart. The three houses in front of my house fell apart. My neighbor died instantly. And in that moment, I was sick, so I didn't have boys. And I asked him to scream my mother's name. And there was a neighbor that said, oh, Victoria, your mother is up there. And I thought, up there where? I thought she was meaning the heaven, you know. no no no she's up there on the street she's up there so i went and my mother was there with my dog and she was okay but well she immediately said that our neighbor didn't make it we're still looking for a friend jumber she's missing he's in bel horizonte his building was in playa grande and he told the building fell apart completely and we're still looking for him His mother didn't sleep all these six days, seven days.

13:28I don't even know how many days has passed. But we are looking for Jumber, Jumber Villasana González. And that's terrible. Not knowing where the people is is the worst part of all this nightmare we're going through. Of course, that must be so difficult not to know. And Victoria, thank you. Let's hear from Gonzalo. When the earthquake finished, thankfully, my house was completely uncompromised. But I did go to my grandmother's house and she had to move out because all of her walls fell out and all of her things were on the floor. And all of a sudden she was about to turn 91 and she didn't have a home anymore.

14:06So that was the first moment in which the needle dropped. But then I fell into this automatic loop of aid and I went to deliver goods and to gather things for people in need. And then we went to La Guaira because we have a friend down there in Playa Grande that has his whole family under a building. And he had been working tirelessly, digging holes here, digging holes there. No one had gone to check the building. No rescue teams, no Venezuelan organizations, no one. It was just them and a bunch of tools. And they had taken out 20 corpses. and that's when I went to the street that I used to go to when I was a kid for so many times because we used to stay in Playa Grande over the weekends to go to the beach, to the beach club.

15:02And I felt completely out of place because La Guaira became completely unrecognizable. The only thing I can compare it to is like standing from across the Hudson River and looking into the New York City skyline and seeing none of the buildings. There's no Empire State. There's no Crizzard Building. There's nothing. It's just a flat, just a flat and out terrain. To me, that was so, so heart-wrenching. And just seeing my friend struggle digging, surrounded by the smell of death, because that is the only way you can describe La Guayra right now. You get off the car and it smells of decaying flesh.

15:41It's so horrible. And it's so painful to see people that are our age that have passed. My college graduation was this Thursday and it got cancelled because there are so many students from my university that have passed sadly. And, you know, it's completely devastating. And I don't think anyone has actually really processed what has been happening because there is a big tax on the absolute absence of a government and things like this. and that is that we have to bear the weight of the consequences of anything that happens to us. And I don't think that we, as Venezuelans right now, we cannot afford to stop and process.

16:22We are stuck in the loop of helping, helping, helping, helping, helping. We have to get each other out. We have to get each other out, which is a beautiful thing. But the painful thing is that it's just a sign of how alone we are and how destroyed the network in this country is. And that is the most desolating part of it all, you know. and just imagining all the people that are still buried under rubble because there are not enough international rescue teams because there were never meant to be enough international rescue teams because there is no Venezuelan rescue team that has the tools to go and scan all of the 250 buildings that fell down in La Guaida.

16:58So there are still buildings that have been unchecked that could probably still have living people in them. And that is the most heartbreaking part. And those rescue efforts, of course, Gonzalo, carry on amid the criticism that not just you, but many people in Venezuela have been making. Elisa, do tell us where you were when the earthquake struck and how you've been in the last week. I live in Caracas, specifically in La Castellana, but I was at the office, which is a little further out. I was in a house. It felt really, really strong. And once we run out, somebody in the crowd said, you know, it wasn't a shake, it was an earthquake.

17:34And I kind of panicked. I called my mom because I knew my mom, my sisters, my dogs were home. I couldn't reach her and I panicked. And then when I could reach her, there was just like screams. And all she was saying was like, the building is coming down. And then, you know, I didn't have any signal for about 10 minutes. And as soon as I got the signal back, my sister sent me a picture of the building. And I coincidentally live in the same building as Gonzalo's grandmother. And it was apocalyptic. As soon as I saw that picture, I knew how serious this had been. It was devastating. I could get home about 20 minutes after the quake when the little shakes stopped happening and I drove super anxiously and there was people on the streets.

18:18A lot of the buildings in the surrounding area were not as destroyed as my building, but there was rubble on the street and everybody was outside. And when I got home and I could hug my whole family, I felt a little better, but it felt really apocalyptic, honestly. Barbara, are you going to live in La Guaira again? Or what are your plans next? This chaos past a little bit? I don't think I'm going to live ever in La Guaira. I love that place. That's where I grow. But I don't think I can live there. It's like a nightmare. So I don't know what I'm going to do next. Because I'm thinking to the next day, looking for a job.

19:00but I was going to graduation like August, but I don't know what is going to happen next. I want to live with my family, see what is next step. Yeah, it's really sad because you as me, I studied my whole university in Caracas, but I live in La Guayra and I cross every single day that trip going to La Guayra to Caracas because I wanted to live in La Guayra. And it's really so sudden and destroying that now I have to live in Caracas in a building. I don't know if that sounds stupid because there's people that doesn't have a house, a home, nothing. But the difference that living in a house and in a building and in a city that is not your city.

19:48Yeah. And I think that what comes up for me mostly in this crisis is how do we keep on living after this? How do we go back to normality? Because you guys have the feeling of not of leaving in a place that does not belong to you and that's not your home. But I think that we all can relate to the idea of feeling like we live in a country that is not ours either, because we have gone through so much in such little time that it's, you know, we're sitting down at the bench just looking at this guy being like, what else? What else do we have to endure, you know, to get better days for everybody? How do you think that people will relate to La Guaira now?

20:28Do you think that it'll be like the tragedy in 1999? Do you think people will go to La Guaira or it'll be like a thing of respect to just, you know, not go? I'm not really sure, but it's not just the fact that the people doesn't have their homes. There's nothing in La Guaira. There's no schools. There's no place to buy food. I'm scared of normality because they don't have normality and they will not have it in a long time. When the health stops, I'm really scared about normality. So I really hope that people don't stop going to La Guayra because La Guayra needs us really, really bad. Like, they really need us.

21:06We need food, medicine and water all over La Guayra. Gonzalo, you mentioned what happened in 1999. Those were the floods and landslides in La Guayra, which killed at the very least 10 ,000 people and probably many more. and I should probably tell you all that I covered that disaster. I went to La Guayra at that time and I would imagine that a lot of you were very young when that happened but your parents can probably remember those times very vividly. That had been Venezuela's worst modern disaster. Are older people talking about 1999? Yeah, it's the point of comparison. I grew up going to La Guayra and it's kind of like the Venezuelan version of 9-11.

21:49Everybody remembers exactly where they were standing when they got the news that that was happening in La Guaira. And it was this collective wound that just got reopened, you know. And there's this little town that's called Carmen de Uria. That is the town that was most affected by the 1999 tragedy that completely disappeared. And every time, you know, you pass through it, you feel the weight of what happened there. And then you wake up one day and something in the same, you know, realm of gravity just happened in 45 seconds. And I think that is the shocking part of it all. You know, the amount of devastation that can happen in so little time, because this was one split second that you closed your eyes and then you were not there.

22:36And it's, I think that's what boggles me the most. And you're all young. You've got decades of life in front of you. So Eliza, how will this event, which has been so shocking and so devastating, how will this mark your life as you live through it? I think it's too early on to tell. My family has been displaced in some type of way. Our building is not livable as of right now. I'm working with a civil association to dispatch emergency products. We get a lot of donations. I've been myself to La Guayra as well as part of the logistics team. We work with different international rescuers. So I think for me, at least, I haven't really had time to think about what steps are next.

23:24We're working on phase two of the emergency state, which is, you know, what we do with everybody who has been displaced, lost their families, lost their homes. And I think what one of the girls said is very important, which is, you know, La Guayra is completely destroyed. There's not a single structure that has been left without at least a crack. So they don't have hospitals. They don't have schools. They don't have supermarkets. Last night, I dispatched a truck of food and water and supplies to Anare, which is a town much more down the coast. And they haven't been able to receive anything for the past week because all of the streets and ways to get there have been blocked.

24:02This is going to have to be a communal effort. We know we don't count with anybody in the government to help us. Actually, we've been actively trying to stop help from coming in and spreading news that is completely false. And I think this is a big wake-up call, if we haven't had enough, actually. It's like a nightmare, and you realize it's not a nightmare. It's your life. It's happening. I think I'm going to never forget that. The feeling of, I don't know the people I love, I don't know what is going to happen then. Barbara, Elisa, Gonzalo and Victoria on the continuing impact of twin earthquakes in Venezuela.

24:40Our thoughts go not only to those who've lost the ones they love the most, but to all of those who are still waiting for news of those who are missing. Our thanks to all of our guests today for sharing their experiences. I'm James Reynolds. You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service.