The death toll in Venezuela’s twin earthquake disaster reached 1,430 Saturday, and millions more were feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs, as the first US aid flights trickled into Caracas.
Facing public outrage at the response by local officials, US-backed interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez said the country was “not alone”.
The US said one runway at Simon Bolivar International Airport was now functioning and that C-17 US military planes were landing there, while a naval ship had arrived off the coast.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said search-and-rescue teams from at least 17 countries were being mobilised to help find survivors.
But the search for survivors saw desperate attempts by local residents to claw away rubble from apartment buildings that collapsed in Wednesday’s double-quakes. Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters are the key, narrow window for finding the living.
There was joy in the hardest-hit coastal area of La Guaira, north of Caracas, when locals pulled an infant alive out of the wreckage on Friday, some 32 hours after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors.
