More than 4,300 confirmed dead in Venezuela earthquakes | World News

The number of people confirmed dead after the devastating back-to-back earthquakes that hit Venezuela last month has risen to more than 4,300.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said 4,333 are known to have died in the catastrophe, while 315 of the dead have not yet been identified.

The official tally of injured remained unchanged at 16,740, while 6,462 people have been rescued and about 17,000 have been left homeless.

Two earthquakes, of 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude, struck Venezuela on 24 June.

Mr Rodriguez said 856 buildings were affected, of which 190 either collapsed completely or suffered structural collapse.

Share

Venezuela leader defends quake response

According to the government’s preliminary estimates, 25,000 homes are needed.

Authorities have already identified around 40 plots of land, totalling about 584,000 square meters, for housing projects.

Mr Rodriguez said his sister, the country’s US-backed interim president Delcy Rodriguez, will allocate the first 200 homes to those affected next week.

He said search operations are continuing, adding: “As long as there is life, there is hope. We still have one or two sites where the situation remains uncertain, active sites where we are searching for survivors.”

Maria Alejandra Sanz, 17, drank her own urine to survive while trapped beneath a collapsed building for 17 hours in the coastal town of La Guaira.

But she lost four friends, including Gonzalo Marquez, from 10 in her dance troupe who had been preparing a routine for their high school graduation.

“We talked about how we weren’t going to see each other after graduation, we talked about how Gonzalo looked like his dad and would have grey hair,” she said.

“They’ll stay young forever, always young.”