Desperate search for survivors after deadly earthquakes hit Venezuela – The Latest

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0:45Rescue workers and volunteers have spent the night picking through the rubble with their hands, trying to find survivors, pulling some people out of the rubble of these blocks of flats. Some people say that Venezuela has effectively been turned into a US protectorate in the months since Maduro's capture. The Department of War is going to have to play a big logistical role here. Venezuela, of course, is reeling still from a decade-plus massive economic crisis. The government is really not well-equipped to respond to this kind of disaster. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

1:19There have been two massive earthquakes that hit Venezuela last night, local time, near the capital city of Caracas, causing huge damage to buildings which have collapsed and sadly massive loss to life. Tom Phillips, as our Latin America correspondent, you've been speaking to people on the ground. Give us a sense of the scale of the damage. I mean, really, really disturbing scenes that we're seeing and hearing about from reporters on the ground. One of our reporters spent the night in Altamira and Los Pazos Grandes, which are some very upmarket areas of Caracas, homes and hotels, foreign embassies.

1:56I was staying there just a few weeks ago when I was in Venezuela and at least three buildings have come crashing down. Rescue workers and volunteers have spent the night picking through the rubble with their hands, trying to find survivors, pulling some people out of the rubble of these blocks of flats. And many, many thousands of people have spent the night out on the streets sleeping on pieces of cardboard or mattresses are intense because they're too scared to go back into these fractured buildings after two such massive earthquakes. So the Venezuelan government has declared a state of emergency.

2:28We're speaking at about one o 'clock UK time. So obviously, any death toll that we're looking at now is sadly likely to rise. But there have been warnings that we could be looking at a death toll of tens of thousands, possibly even 100 ,000. Yeah, I think at the moment, people are just trying to get a sense of what is going on on the ground. I've seen that Donald Trump has been talking about a devastating number of deaths it really is not clear the official death toll as things stand is 164 with nearly a thousand people injured i suspect that will rise considerably but at the moment we just don't know i mean just to give you a sense on a very personal level i've been speaking to one of our reporters this morning who is heading to the northern one of the one of the northern cities that is worst affected um and she told me that she's going there because her aunt has disappeared so there are lots of people who are missing at the moment and social media is absolutely lighting up with pictures of of people young and old who have not been seen since about 6 p.m yesterday when that earthquake just tore through this coastal region and brought many many big buildings crashing down yes we'll come on to the to the rescue efforts but were there warnings issued has venezuela experienced earthquakes of this magnitude before that would have you know sent alerts to people to say that this was coming?

3:43No, we don't believe there was any warning that this was coming, as you might expect. You know, for example, in Mexico City, where you often get a few seconds or perhaps a minute warning if such a major earthquake is about to happen, people were taken surprised. A lot of people, I think, were tuning into the World Cup football match between Brazil and Scotland. I've seen images on the internet of people watching that game and suddenly their front room shaking all over the place and then sprinting for cover. People at the airport who are obviously waiting to get on board planes and then they're in the airside in the terminal and dust starts crashing down from the ceiling and the whole structure is shaking and people are racing for cover.

4:19So it obviously has come completely out of the blue. The last major earthquake that Venezuela suffered was in 1967 and it hit a very similar region, Caracas, in the northern coast. Hundreds died then, but we just don't know how bad this is going to be at the moment. Yeah, and there is a massive search and rescue operation at the moment as well that's involving countries overseas, neighbouring countries, but also the United States. And they're trying to get access to the worst affected areas, right, that haven't been accessible to rescuers at the time that we're speaking. That's right. One of the big problems that they're going to face is that the Simon Bolivar International Airport, which is to the north of Caracas on the coast, is located in what seems at the moment to have been the absolutely worst hit area.

5:02The runways are apparently not operating, so it is going to be a struggle to get aid and humanitarian assistance in. And another problem is that Venezuela, of course, is reeling still from a decade-plus massive economic crisis that has brought the country to its knees, the worst crisis outside a war zone. So the government is really not well-equipped to respond to this kind of disaster, and I think it really will need international help. The question is just going to be getting that in. Yeah. So let's talk about the United States, because obviously we have spoken about the US and Venezuela in very, very different circumstances over the course of this year with the strikes on Venezuela at the start of the year and the capture, the extraordinary capture of former President Nicolas Maduro.

5:45The US does seem to be vocally supportive of Venezuela at the moment in terms of rescue efforts and has deployed people to help, hasn't it? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the ironies of this. Just a few weeks ago, I was in exactly this area, Laguayra, Cartier-Lamar along the northern coast, interviewing residents of housing estates along those coastal communities who had seen helicopters, US attack helicopters, come flying in on January the 3rd when Trump ordered Maduro's abduction. And that event made some of them think of the earthquake in 1967. They woke up and their building had suddenly come under attack and the front had been ripped off it.

6:25We met this old lady who had prepared a grab bag to flee if there was another U.S. attack. There hasn't been another U.S. attack, but those communities have been leveled. The Naval Academy near to where we were, I've seen pictures, it's been brought down. At least four or five, maybe as many as a dozen big buildings, including hotels, have come crashing down in La Guayra. So this is right in the area that the U.S. attack, where it began as they made their way to Caracas to capture the president. The U.S. is now in an unusual position because it has, some people say that Venezuela has effectively been turned into a US protectorate in the months since Maduro's capture.

7:01So what is it going to do now? Is it really going to respond to this now that it is, to all intents and purposes, in charge of Venezuela? It, in a way, owns this crisis, and it needs to get humanitarian workers and, I don't know, possibly even some kind of military force in here to help with these rescues, perhaps similar to the way it did in 2010 when Haiti was levelled, Port of Prince. Haiti's capital was levelled by a massive earthquake. Yeah. So what can we read into the political statements that we've been hearing from President Delce Rodriguez, who was installed after the capture of Maduro?

7:37She has said she's grateful for US support. Is she calling for further international support? And do we know where that's coming from? Yeah, well, I mean, I suppose to be fair, she is the interim leader of Venezuela. She is a Venezuelan. And I don't think it would be fair to doubt that she genuinely wants to see a good rescue operation and cares about her country and the people who are trapped and the survivors who still may be under the rubble. but undoubtedly this is also an opportunity for her to show that she is in charge she she was maduro's vice president she came to power after he was abducted and has since struck up this partnership with the u.s and despite being very unpopular at home as he was as part of his regime that had led venezuela into this massive humanitarian economic crisis over the past few years she is keen to project an image of strength and power and control and show that she could perhaps win the elections if and when they are held in Venezuela and beat off the challenge from Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader.

8:38So I suppose she is doing everything she can now to show that she has international support and that she is responding and that the government is doing everything it can to help people. But as you say, this huge natural disaster that seems likely to lead to a massive humanitarian catastrophe is coming off the back of decades of economic disaster, recent political turmoil. Obviously, we're dealing now with the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes, but there will be a massive effort needed to reconstruct, to rebuild. It feels like Venezuela is ill-equipped, perhaps, to deal with that in the longer term currently.

9:16Yeah, I mean, to give you a sense of this, nearly 8 million Venezuelans have fled their country in recent years because it has absolutely been crippled by hyperinflation, hunger, economic crisis, political repression. And many of those people, most of those people have not come back yet. So, of course, once the dust settles and once we get a sense of the scale of this, there will be political ramifications. There always are. There will be questions because, yeah, of course, this is a natural disaster. But natural disasters are often, in a sense, man-made. The huge earthquake in 2010 in Haiti, of course, it was the result of a natural phenomenon.

9:55huge earthquakes but it was also the consequence of corruption and government incompetence, poor building standards that brought all of those buildings crashing down so there will be questions to ask about whether the government was ready to respond to this disaster and I suspect the answer is that it is going to be woefully lacking because of the plight of Venezuela since Maduro came to power in 2013 and led his country into an absolute economic disaster It is a tragedy Tom, thank you so much for your time Thank you That's it for today. My huge thanks again to The Guardian's Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips.

10:30You can keep up with all his reporting and our live blog on this story over at theguardian.com. And I really recommend listening to our sister podcast, Stateside with Kyan Carter. As the US prepares to celebrate 250 years since its founding, Kairai is looking at the conflicts at the heart of the American project. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your fees as usual tomorrow morning. The latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Half. It was produced by Leo Schick and Bryony Moore. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch.

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