The death toll in Venezuela is rising: 1,430 dead and 68,900 missing. Exhausted rescue workers

The incident reflects the tension in some of the affected areas, caused by the perceived slowness of the official response and the presence of volunteers who, according to witnesses, were restricted in their involvement in the rescue efforts.

Meanwhile, the international relief effort continues. Around 100 rescue workers, coordinated by the Italian Civil Protection Agency, are on their way to Caracas.

Alle porte di Caracas

La Guaira si trova sulla costa

fonte: Google Maps

The number of people still missing, however, remains uncertain, though it is in the tens of thousands: the situation is further complicated by the million Venezuelans who have emigrated in recent years, many of them illegally .

Following the earthquake, online platforms were set up to search for people still missing: according to the website “Venezuela te busca”, the number of people not yet located is 23,018 out of 28,511 registered; on “Desaparecidos terremoto Venezuela”, the figures are 50,243 and 58,466 respectively.

The two earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, were recorded on Wednesday just 39 seconds apart in the Venezuelan state of Yaracuy, in an unusual phenomenon known as a seismic doublet. The two quakes brought Venezuela to its knees, causing hundreds of buildings to collapse.

The consequences of this earthquake were made even more severe by the shallow depth of the epicentre, just 10 kilometres below the surface. And, above all, by the fact that the houses were built without any regard for earthquake-resistant standards.

The area hardest hit, apart from the capital, is the region to the west of Caracas. In particular, the rural province of Yumarè, a town with a population of around 20,000, which remains completely cut off.

It was the strongest earthquake in 126 years, with tremors felt as far as over 160 kilometres from the epicentre, on the border with Colombia.

Up to 6.8 million people may have been affected by the two powerful earthquakes that devastated Venezuela on Wednesday. This is the estimate released by the United Nations through the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which states that around two million people live in the Caracas metropolitan area alone. The UN points out that this is a preliminary assessment, which is set to be updated as on-the-ground assessments continue.

During the same press conference, UN agencies reported that around twenty emergency hospitals in the states of La Guaira, Miranda, Aragua, Carabobo, Falcón, Zulia, Yaracuy and Lara, as well as in the district of Caracas, had suffered structural damage.

The government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez has asked the United Nations to send three emergency medical teams equipped with surgical facilities, one of which is already on its way from the United States.

The death toll among Italian and Venezuelan nationals following the earthquake in the South American country has risen to three dead and five injured, with a further 35 people missing: this was stated by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani during a press briefing in Dubrovnik, where he is currently on a mission.

Tajani added that Italian nationals registered as Italians living in Venezuela number around 150,000, “so we do not know exactly what will be found under the rubble”.

Giuseppe Colaianni, an Italian-Venezuelan national born in Caracas in 1970 and who died following the collapse of his home in La Guaira, 30 kilometres from Caracas, one of the areas hardest hit by the earthquake; before dying, crushed by the rubble, he managed to rescue his wife. The 55-year-old was originally from Calascibetta, in the province of Enna.

He was married to a Venezuelan woman, who escaped unharmed from the collapse.

The couple have two children, who live in Florence and in France. Colaianni worked for a logistics company. He and his wife had returned to Venezuela a few months earlier, after spending two years living near their daughter, who is studying in France.

“We have received reports concerning several Italians who are the subject of investigations.” This was stated by the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Crisis Unit, Nicola Minasi, whilst providing Tg2 Post with an update on the situation of Italian nationals affected by the earthquake that struck Venezuela. “There is a large Italian community of over 140,000 people and more than 65,000 in Caracas alone,” explained Minasi. “La Guaira, one of the districts of Caracas, was among the worst affected. It is precisely there that we are receiving many reports of people who are not responding”.

Minasi added that he was “working tirelessly” with the consulate in Caracas and the embassy to carry out on-the-spot checks.