Each morning since the twin earthquakes, Caracas wakes to a little more darkness and a little more despair. Prayers for missing relatives go unanswered, and survivors’ fragile sleep is haunted by nightmares of falling walls and sudden panic.
For former police officer Jan Carlos Roa Garcia and his family, another night meant sleeping outdoors. Their building was not reduced to rubble, but inspectors say it is too dangerous to return to.
Tears on his face, Jan Carlos says he does not know how to begin rebuilding his life. ‘If I was 30 and not 50, then maybe. But I don’t know where to begin. And so far, no-one in authority has contacted us.’
A lifelong public servant, he stops short of harsh criticism of the response, though exhaustion and anger are clear.
Others are less guarded. Musician Zaira Castro, standing in a plaza near two collapsed blocks, says the government has not shown adequate help. ‘We’re all pretty frustrated because the government is not showing what it should — a serious display of help,’ she says. ‘It’s actually us, the Venezuelans, who are helping each other. We live in a society that has grown into helping each other. We don’t depend on the government — that doesn’t exist for us anymore.’
In Chacao, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez toured the area with the mayor and was met with public anger. A resident shouted, ‘You’re campaigning in the middle of a tragedy! The government isn’t doing anything for the people.’
I know these streets personally. I lived in Los Palos Grandes in Chacao for years as the BBC’s Venezuela correspondent. My old apartment was only metres from the collapsed Petunia building, where rescue crews still work round the clock to reach people believed trapped beneath the rubble. A friend recently posted on social media that her mother is among the missing.
It was a small relief to find my former building, the Alheli, standing and its caretaker, Pedro, still chatting with elderly neighbours on the porch. One resident had twisted an ankle fleeing down the stairs. All agreed they could not remember anything this severe in their lifetimes.
The situation is even more desperate in badly hit coastal towns such as La Guaira. Around a hundred buildings lie flattened; scenes there have been described as apocalyptic. As rescue hopes dim, anger deepens.
‘There are still people in there, we need machinery,’ pleaded Eileen Lada, a resident. ‘Help us, please.’
Hospitals along the northern coastline are at breaking point. A health system starved of funding for decades is straining to meet demand that would overwhelm far better-equipped countries. Doctors and nurses are doing what they can under some of the most harrowing conditions imaginable.
Survivors’ accounts from hospital wards are chilling. ‘It was awful — so many people died, so many family members went missing,’ Maria Vargas told AFP from her hospital bed. ‘I lost my house completely, but we’re all right, thank God.’
In earthquake rescues the first 48 hours are crucial; those hours have passed. For many Venezuelans, this now feels like the hardest moment in the country’s recent history, in a nation that has already endured so much in recent years.