CARACAS — More stories of miraculous rescue have emerged from Venezuela, as emergency teams raced on Sunday to find more survivors of the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela the past week, with signs of life bringing occasional relief to a grim quest to whittle down a list of tens of thousands missing.The death toll from Wednesday’s twin earthquakes neared 1,500 people as foreign rescue teams poured into La Guaira, the hardest-hit state of a country long mired in a deep political and economic crisis.Search efforts have provided some moments of jubilation, including the rescue of an infant and a woman trapped for over three days. Meanwhile, officials are hoping a surge of foreign aid and responders will bolster emergency workers and help address humanitarian needs.Interim President Delcy Rodríguez said 33 people had been pulled from debris alive over the weekend. Among them were two 11-year-old boys, who were separately rescued from collapsed buildings within hours of each other on Sunday.However, with tens of thousands of people still missing, hopes of finding more survivors are fading by the hour.Aid agencies say the first 48 to 72 hours after a disaster are crucial for finding people alive. Relatives of the missing are facing a fifth night waiting for news of their loved ones.As of Sunday, at least 1,450 people have been killed in what Rodríguez said was the “most brutal natural catastrophe” in Venezuela’s history.The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes on Wednesday struck within 39 seconds and caused almost 800 buildings to collapse, leaving many people trapped inside.Desperate families have been digging through the debris – some by hand – trying to find loved ones.Some have told BBC that they can hear people under the rubble, but cannot move the heavy slabs of concrete, and are waiting anxiously for heavy machinery.Though the crucial 72-hour window had passed, rescuers had not given up on Sunday, saying people could still be found alive, especially if they had access to food and water.UN Resident Coordinator Gianluca Rampolla told the BBC experts think it is still possible to find people alive, but “time is running short”.Rodríguez has been sharing optimistic messages on social media, including videos of rescues from over the weekend.Rescuers shared video footage of an 11-year-old boy, named as Moises, being pulled from twisted debris — his eyes covered to protect them from the sun.Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) said Moises was buried under about 3m (9.8ft) of debris, and the rescue team spent six hours conducting “high-precision work” on Saturday to reach him.Reuters reported that a rescuer was overheard on a walkie-talkie saying the young boy was found near his sister and mother, who had both died.Hours later, Rodríguez posted a video on X, purportedly showing the rescue of a second 11-year-old boy in the town of Caraballeda.”In these hours, every life is hope for Venezuela,” she wrote.Also in Caraballeda, one of the hardest hit areas, French and American teams rescued a father and his teenage son from under rubble on Sunday, news agency AFP reported.Frustration has also grown, with some saying the government’s response is too slow and inefficient.A firefighter working in Caraballeda told the BBC there are dozens of buildings yet to be searched.”There aren’t enough hands,” he said. “And it is very, very likely that there are still people trapped.”In Catia La Mar, La Guaira, one of the worst-affected areas, people were working with their bare hands to searched collapsed multi-story apartment blocks.A CNN team on the ground witnessed the moment a person was rescued from the rubble of a building in the hard-hit coastal city of La Guaira.Onlookers were silent as a human chain of civil defense workers and volunteers carefully extracted the person from within the ruins. One worker raised his fist when he saw the victim – indicating that the person rescued is alive. They were quickly given an IV and shuttled into a waiting ambulance for further medical attention.The relief was palpable among rescue workers and bystanders alike. The window for finding survivors in the ruins is closing fast more than four days after the devastating earthquakes. One man, Hernán Sandoval, said he’s spent two straight days digging, trying to find his “children, nephews, and other family members.”“Venezuela was not prepared for this. We were not even prepared for a flu, honestly,” Sandoval said. “We are still here, continuing to dig, hoping to find any body or any sign. But faith is the last thing you lose.”One man, Wilber, who looked exhausted, cried as he told the BBC he had lost eight of his relatives — and five of them were still entombed in their homes.He said that far from being a help, the state was actually a hindrance.”The government decided to close the streets,” he said, adding it was “making it harder to bring help”.”Yesterday we waited from 6am to 4pm to get a special permission to come here. We wasted hours,” he said.Rescuers’ efforts have also been hampered by aftershocks, which are in turn terrifying residents.Thousands of people are living in their cars or camping at places like the airport and golf course, away from buildings that could collapse.The golf course in Caraballeda has become an epicentre for the emergency response.Its green lawn, which used to be perfectly manicured, is now a makeshift hospital and donation centre, where residents who have lost everything are sifting through piles of donated clothing and boxes of humanitarian aid.In the area surrounding the golf course, Caraballeda’s streets – cracked and covered in rubble – are marked by dust and silence, interrupted only by heavy machinery and those searching among the remains.Rodríquez said the José María Vargas sports complex in La Guaira was also serving as an emergency response centre.Pointing out that the armed forces were sorting clothes, medicine and food, Rodríguez said “everything is functioning as well as possible during these terrible moments, these terrible hours, that our people are enduring”.”Let them know that no one here is alone, not a single family or individual need [to] feel alone. Our people and our state are here, the social protection system is here, and international solidarity is here.”In recent days, international rescue teams from Mexico, Spain, Qatar, the US, and the UK have arrived to reinforce the search efforts.The UN’s Tom Fletcher said on Saturday that 39 search and rescue teams had been deployed from all over the world, with each consisting of 50-100 people.”You’re looking at almost 2,000 people surging in, 111 dogs, medical teams as well. We go in with these micro drones, they call them cockroach drones, that help us find people in the buildings.”
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