Rodríguez defends Venezuela’s emergency earthquake response as number of bodies expected to soar

Interim president says unrest will not break out despite anger at official response to the 24 June disaster

Venezuela’s interim president has defended her country’s emergency response to the twin earthquakes that have killed more than 3,000 people, vowing the country would not descend into social unrest.

Many Venezuelans have expressed anger at what they see as the US-backed government’s inadequate response to the 24 June disaster before international teams arrived.

Delcy Rodríguez, speaking during a military ceremony marking Venezuela’s independence day, said: “There will be no social unrest here – what we have here is deep social solidarity.”

Thousands of public officials and rescue teams had been sent to help dig out victims and find survivors, she added.

On Sunday night, Venezuela’s information ministry said the number of people killed in the quakes had risen to 3,342, while the number of people injured had passed 16,700.

One of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters, the shocks collapsed scores of buildings, leaving thousands homeless, especially in the coastal La Guaira area north of the capital, Caracas.

Eleven days after the double shocks, international rescue teams were wrapping up operations to find more survivors while families were still trying to dig out bodies of loved ones from the wreckage.

Rosa López’s 25-year-old son-in-law, José Antonio Toledo, was found under the building where he was working as a security guard when the quakes struck. Crews took his body to a local hospital, where staff turned them away because there was no space. The body was sent to another facility and eventually transferred to an open parking lot.

A forensic doctor helped the family find him days later, on Saturday. But once they identified his body, they didn’t know what to do with it because they couldn’t afford the $450 (£350) that a funeral home was charging.

At almost midnight on Saturday, López got word that the mayor’s office was offering them a free space at a local cemetery, but they had to move quickly so as not to lose the spot. An hour later, López and her daughter trudged up a hill leading to the cemetery and buried Toledo.

“He was an exemplary person, a boy who liked helping people,” López said.

They saved him from a mass grave, but many fear that is coming as they search for the bodies of their loved ones.

The number of bodies found is expected to soar.

Forensic technician Joel Mirabal has worked for seven days straight since the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes struck.

The 45-year-old estimates that in 60% to 70% of cases, there is a relative or neighbour available to identify a body when he comes to collect it. Even so, it’s a struggle, he said, with many relying on tattoos, scars or familiar clothing.

“They don’t look even 10% like what they were in real life,” he said of the victims.

If a body cannot be identified, it goes to forensic specialists working at La Guaira seaport. Private companies have donated large cooling containers to help preserve the bodies, but the number of dead keeps growing.

“Obviously, mass graves will have to be created,” Mirabal said. “The collapse is massive, and the bodies are buried under many layers of debris.”

Mirabal said he and other forensic technicians anticipate spending up to three months collecting bodies.