Hours after the two earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, that have shaken Venezuela, the country faces the pain of the loss of life, the devastation caused to infrastructure, and the anguish of thousands of families who still do not know the whereabouts of their loved ones. While citizens and rescue teams - with insufficient resources - search for survivors among the rubble, the diaspora feels powerless due to the distance. All they can do is try to contact the missing individuals persistently and share information and photos in search of any clues about their whereabouts.
María Jamroz, 33 years old and residing in Spain for two and a half years, is searching for her father Tadeo Jamroz, 65 years old; his wife, Nataly Morantes, "in her 40s"; and Anastasia Jamroz, their 11-year-old daughter and María's sister. They live in Caraballeda, one of the many affected areas in La Guaira, the coastal state north of Caracas most devastated by the earthquakes and their aftershocks. "I haven't been able to contact any of the three. I have a neighbor's contact, and they are not answering either," shares the young Venezuelan. All she knows is what she sees on the news and social media: "It's a very devastated area".
The number of reported missing persons increases with each passing minute. Two websites were set up by Venezuelan civil society to register the missing: www.desaparecidosterremotovenezuela.com and www.venezuelatebusca.com. By Thursday night, both search platforms had already counted more than 40,000 missing persons, although there are duplicate names or some entries made for more than one person on the same record. José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, confirmed the death of two Spaniards and the disappearance of 80. These numbers hide the faces of babies, young people, elderly, mothers, fathers, grandparents, siblings, cousins...
Additionally, the website www.terremotovenezuela.com was created with a "damage map" informing about the state of buildings in total collapse, with partial or severe damage. The map shows that the coastal area, especially where La Guaira is located, is the most affected.
Tadeo Jamroz, his wife Nataly Morantes, and their daughter Anastasia Jamroz, missing in Caraballeda (La Guaira).E. M.
Justo Navarro, 31 years old, is experiencing the uncertainty of not knowing the status of his relatives. "My whole family, both maternal and paternal, lives in La Guaira. Only my parents, siblings, and nephews do not live there." They are in the Catia La Mar area. His family is already in mourning because they have found two cousins dead: José Luis Navarro, 48 years old, and Andrea Betancourt, 46. They have rescued alive from the rubble two of José Luis's children, José Alejandro and Valentina Andrea, 18 and 20 years old. In the same collapsed house, where four other people lived, who are still missing. "I'm shocked. I can't believe it," Justo expresses.
The young Venezuelan, residing in Madrid, now focuses on finding all his relatives, more than 30, who are still missing. He mainly talks about those related on his mother's side. "That's what worries me the most because in more vulnerable areas... We have tried to contact them. Most of them are elderly and have not given us any response." Justo is particularly concerned about his grandmother, Corina Urbina, 80 years old. "She is an amputee of both legs due to diabetes". She lives in Los Próceres, vereda siete - also in the Catia La Mar area.
"I am very desperate"
Karla Rodríguez Álvarez, 36 years old and residing in Spain for 10 years, also does not know the whereabouts of her loved ones. "I am very desperate, we still have no news of several family members, and there is anguish because from here we don't even know how we can help. It's distressing," she says. Specifically, she is looking for her cousin Juan Carlos Ugueto, 53 years old; his wife and their two young adult children. They have their home in Macuto (La Guaira).
"We know of acquaintances who have reached the buildings of relatives that have collapsed and are still under the rubble because there are no firefighters who can help them get out," recounts the Venezuelan. Karla's husband also has no news of his cousins and an aunt. Also missing is a friend and her entire family, who live in the La Soublette area, in Catia La Mar - also in La Guaira. She was able to locate other relatives as the hours passed. "We know that some uncles are okay. They have lost everything, they can't enter their homes, but at least they are okay," she appreciates amidst the tragedy, hoping to locate the missing family members. "We hope it's due to a lack of signal or battery on the phone that they can't communicate."
"We are anxious and worried," confesses Andrea Lucía Martínez, a Venezuelan in Spain. She is looking for her uncle Enrique Hernández Martínez, around 73 years old. She mentions that he lives alone in Caraballeda (La Guaira). "He is an elderly person, he doesn't have a phone or social media." She has received images of the building where her uncle lived, completely collapsed. "There are many missing persons in the same area," she says.
Andrea Lucía cannot help but get emotional when recalling that her family already experienced a terrible natural disaster in La Guaira at the end of 1999. This event is known as the Vargas Tragedy (named after the state La Guaira until 2019), where intense rains caused floods and huge landslides that descended from the Cordillera de la Costa towards the central coast. At that time, Andrea's grandparents lost their home, which was swept away by the water.
In that tragedy, there were 700 deaths, but other estimates claim that figure was low and place the number between 10,000 and 30,000 fatalities, as many people were swept into the sea or buried without being identified. In that disaster, over 8,000 homes were destroyed, and about 75,000 people were displaced. 26 years later, there are still people who had not been able to recover from that tragedy. And now they have had to face a new misfortune. The focus now is on rescuing as many people as possible, and time is of the essence.
Venezuelans, both inside and outside the country, are reliving another natural disaster: the Caracas earthquake of 1967, measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, officially claiming the lives of 283 people. However, other historical publications and subsequent counts raise the number to over 300. At the same time, nearly 80,000 people were left homeless.
Yoleddy, 31 years old, found her uncles Gardelia and Carlos Moreno, who had gone missing in Tanaguarena (La Guaira), on Thursday afternoon. She shared her relief with this newspaper. This is the second time they have been saved from a natural catastrophe. Their family experienced the landslide in the same area in 1999. "It was very intense. We lost neighbors and friends, but we were not affected beyond material losses," she recalls. From the images she has seen on social media, she believes that the houses are in worse condition now than back then because in 1999 "they were affected but did not collapse." Yoleddy emigrated to Spain nine years ago and has not seen her uncles since then. She gets emotional thinking about how long it has been since she hugged them.