Rescuers save trapped security guard from mall rubble eight days after Venezuela quakes

CARACAS — Rescuers dug out a 44-year-old survivor trapped in the ruins of the mall where he worked in the Venezuelan state of ​La Guaira, more than a week after two strong earthquakes devastated the country’s northern coast.Work to save security guard Hernan Alberto Gil from the rubble of the nine-story Galerias Playa Grande shopping center began on Monday, according ‌to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has been posting updates on X about the operation.Gil had been given water and medics had attached him to an intravenous drip while teams from Venezuela, El Salvador, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, Portugal and the United States worked to free him.According to Bukele, rescuers needed to dig two separate tunnels to reach him, because of the instability of the ruins.Gil was carried out of the rubble on a stretcher on Thursday morning and loaded into an ambulance as cheering rescuers and reporters looked on.”I’m grateful to God for keeping him alive for so many days,” said Gusbimar Gonzalez, Gil’s wife. “He endured it all like a warrior.”Emergency workers managed to free Gil more than 100 hours after they had first located him under 140 tons of rubble.A Chilean firefighter had earlier described the rescue operation as “without doubt the most complex and technically difficult which I’ve had to tackle”.Allan Madrigal, a paramedic with the Costa Rican Red Cross, told journalists at the site that Gil had “emerged just perfect” from the ordeal.Madrigal is the rescuer who heard Gil’s faint cries for help emerging from the rubble on Sunday.”It was an emotional moment,” he recalled, explaining that at first he had not trusted his own ears and asked a colleague to confirm that he “wasn’t just imagining it”.Gil had been on duty in a small concrete booth in the basement of the parking lot adjacent to the Galerias Playa Grande mall in Catia La Mar when the twin quakes struck.It appears that the booth created a shell around him, protecting him from the 140 tons of rubble which collapsed around and on top of him.”He has told us that he does not even have a crushed nail,” another Costa Rican Red Cross worker said shortly before Gil was pulled from the rubble.Parts of the access ducts rescuers built to reach him collapsed several times, highlighting the dangers the work posed to the rescuers as well as Gil.Overnight, the search teams were finally able to establish visual contact with the survivor.In footage recorded by a small camera inserted into the rubble where Gil was trapped, a Chilean firefighter could be heard asking him to turn his head towards the camera.One of his eyes was bloodshot and he was wearing a face mask, which rescuers had earlier passed to him through a small hole to protect him from the dust and debris created by their efforts to free him.The firefighter also asked him to don goggles to protect his eyes as rescuers continued to carefully dig away at the rubble surrounding him.Marco Antonio Franco from the Mexican Red Cross described Gil as “a cheerful man”.He told Mexican news site Milenio that the survivor “even asked for hydration drinks of specific flavors he likes”, adding that “of course we indulged him”.”He himself drives us on, telling us to carry on. He recognizes our team members, saying ‘how nice that you came back and that you’re with me again’.”According to Franco, the rescuers and Gil kept up a steady chatter about his family and about the challenging rescue.Madrigal, the paramedic who located Gil, was on his first international rescue mission and said the work he had carried out in Venezuela had changed him.”The lad who came here a week ago is not the same one that will return to Costa Rica, believe me,” he told reporters.Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said on Thursday evening that “We haven’t ended search and rescue efforts after quakes.”The quakes, with magnitudes of 7.2 and ​7.5, struck less than a minute apart almost eight days ago, killing 2,595 people and leaving more than 12,000 others injured, said Rodriguez.Catastrophe and risk modeling firm Verisk said it expects economic losses from the quakes to top $10 billion.By Thursday, Venezuela had received 2,000 tons of humanitarian aid from other countries, according to the foreign ministry.