Friday, July 3, 2026.
Venezuela: When Natural Disaster Meets Human Failure
The events that have unfolded in Venezuela over the past week represent one of the most devastating catastrophes Latin America has faced in decades. What began as two powerful earthquakes quickly evolved into a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions. With more than 2,200 confirmed fatalities, thousands injured, and tens of thousands displaced, the death toll continues to rise as rescue teams work tirelessly through the rubble of entire communities reduced to ruins. The state of La Guaira has suffered the most extensive destruction, with widespread structural failures leaving entire neighborhoods uninhabitable.
As engineers and structural experts continue their inspections, the focus has shifted beyond the sheer force of nature to the vulnerability of many of the buildings that collapsed. Investigators are examining whether deficiencies in construction materials, engineering practices, and foundation design contributed to the scale of the destruction. Should these findings be confirmed, the disaster will not be remembered solely as the result of an earthquake, but also as the consequence of years of inadequate construction standards, insufficient oversight, and systemic failures in building practices.
Equally concerning are the growing questions surrounding the emergency response. While countless firefighters, medical personnel, military units, volunteers, and international rescue teams have worked around the clock to save lives, reports have emerged describing operational delays, restrictions on rescue efforts, and coordination challenges that may have hindered life-saving operations during the critical first hours after the disaster. These accounts have fueled an important discussion about whether every decision made in the immediate aftermath placed the preservation of human life above all other considerations.
The lessons emerging from this tragedy extend far beyond Venezuela’s borders. Earthquakes cannot be prevented, but their consequences can often be mitigated. Sound engineering, strict enforcement of building codes, effective emergency preparedness, transparent governance, and seamless coordination among responding agencies frequently determine whether a natural disaster remains an emergency or escalates into a national catastrophe.
In this special edition, we examine not only the immediate impact of these devastating earthquakes, but also the critical questions that inevitably arise once the dust begins to settle: What failed? What could have been prevented? And what lessons should governments, businesses, and communities learn to better prepare for the disasters of tomorrow?
Brett Mikkelson
Founder, B.M. Investigations, Inc. – Private Investigations in Panama
The Government of Venezuela Raises the Death Toll from the Double Earthquake to 2295
The president of the Venezuelan Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, raised this Wednesday the death toll from the double earthquake that struck northern Venezuela last week to 2,295, representing an increase of 352 deaths. According to Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 26 of the deceased are Spanish, and there are still 12 people located under the rubble and 150 with whom contact has not yet been established. President Delcy Rodríguez has declared seven days of national mourning for the victims, starting this Wednesday. The injured, according to the latest official report, number 11,267, and most are being treated in hospitals in Caracas under precarious conditions. Jorge Rodríguez also indicated that 6,461 people have been rescued.
In a formal ceremony, the acting president of Venezuela awarded the “Hero of Venezuela” decoration to rescue brigades from Switzerland and Italy, who are leaving the country, and highlighted the positive aspects of cooperation and friendship between peoples.
One Week After the Earthquakes, La Guaira Adapts to the New Reality
It has now been one week since the June 24 earthquakes, perhaps the greatest natural disaster in the history of Venezuela. In La Guaira, despite the arrival of humanitarian aid and rescue personnel, efforts to address the devastation left by the earthquakes are progressing very slowly.
In total, seven days have passed since the attention of all Venezuela turned to La Guaira in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the earthquake. Despite this, in the coastal state, progress—although visible—does not appear to be advancing at the pace required to address the scale of the situation.
Along the road from Maiquetía to Macuto, the scene is filled with displaced people who, some in tents and others in improvised structures, spend their time on the streets while waiting for some form of government solution. These are thousands of people surviving in the open, largely thanks to private donations.
The presence of the state is reflected through members of the Bolivarian National Guard and the Bolivarian National Police, who are mainly responsible for managing vehicle traffic at dozens of checkpoints along Soublette Avenue. However, the scale of the tragedy is such that the presence of officials and foreign rescue workers is simply not sufficient.
At each collapsed building where teams are searching for survivors and transporting bodies to the port of La Guaira—the improvised and centralized morgue—there are dozens of others where debris removal work has not yet begun.
The Earthquake Puts Pressure on a Venezuelan Economy That Is Trying to Recover Through a Record Debt Restructuring
Venezuela is facing the largest sovereign debt restructuring in history under the additional pressure of the earthquake suffered this week. The government of Delcy Rodríguez is working on a record-breaking debt restructuring that, if confirmed, would exceed in size the major restructurings of Greece or Argentina. It also comes at a delicate moment, with the country far from economic stability and the earthquake adding new spending needs to address the humanitarian emergency and reconstruction.
Caracas formally launched a process in May to restructure public debt and that of Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). In fact, the government has hired Centerview Partners, with French banker Matthieu Pigasse—former Lazard executive who has participated in major sovereign restructurings—leading the negotiations. Venezuela faces a massive debt burden and a highly fragmented creditor base that includes bondholders, bilateral lenders (especially China), and holders of arbitral awards, court judgments, and oil-related commercial debt.
So far, analysts estimated external debt at between $150 billion and $200 billion. If the final figure reaches $240 billion (more than €210 billion), according to a recent Financial Times report, it would be more than twice Venezuela’s GDP (around $100 billion in 2025 according to the International Monetary Fund) and far beyond what the country can sustain under normal conditions. For this reason, analysts believe the negotiation will not only revolve around whether there will be a haircut, but also how the operation will be structured to prevent Venezuela from emerging from one default only to fall into another shortly after. This week’s earthquake also adds an extra layer of difficulty. The economy already needed to recover investment, stabilize prices, rebuild infrastructure, and reactivate oil production. Now it must also absorb material damage, basic services disruptions, and emergency response costs.
“The earthquake leads to a delay in the timeline. The schedule planned before the seismic event was already very demanding. In the current situation, with an interim government facing coordination problems and having to manage a humanitarian crisis as well as what will likely be the largest debt restructuring in history, a delay in the timeline is virtually certain,” explains Judith Arnal, senior research fellow in economics at the Elcano Royal Institute.
However, this delay does not necessarily imply a larger haircut. “It may lead to longer maturity extensions, longer grace periods, or contingent clauses. Investors will likely interpret the earthquake as a transitory shock rather than a permanent loss of payment capacity,” Arnal adds. “Prioritizing reconstruction over creditors can be complicated. Politically it is attractive and makes sense, but financially it is limited. Reconstruction will require financing, and that depends on regaining access to markets and multilateral institutions. Therefore, reconstruction and debt restructuring must go hand in hand.”
Washington has not commented on how the earthquake should affect the debt restructuring, but its initial response has been to facilitate humanitarian aid and international coordination. Donald Trump said the United States is “ready, willing, and able” to help Venezuela and stated that he had instructed all government agencies to act quickly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was preparing a “large, fast, and effective” response. In fact, the U.S. Treasury has authorized operations related to earthquake relief in Venezuela that would otherwise have been prohibited under sanctions, marking a further easing of restrictions on the Latin American country.
Bond decline
Investors have already begun to show greater caution. Bloomberg data shows that Venezuela’s sovereign bond maturing in 2027 traded above 55 cents on the dollar in mid-May, amid initial optimism over the formal start of the restructuring, which was seen as a genuine attempt by Venezuela to return to financial markets and restore investor confidence. Since then, it has lost ground and this week has fallen back below 50 cents. PDVSA debt has also corrected. Its 2035 bond has declined from levels above 50 cents in May to around 45 cents.
Oil plays a crucial role in Venezuela’s economy. The country has the world’s largest proven crude reserves, but the industry has been severely damaged by years of sanctions, underinvestment, poor management, and loss of technical capacity. Production has recovered from the lows recorded in 2020 and reached 1.18 million barrels per day in May, according to Bloomberg data. This is its best level since 2019, but still far from the more than 2.4 million barrels per day the country produced in 2012. And for the restructuring to succeed, PDVSA will be a central pillar.
“There must be a comprehensive agreement covering all creditors and resulting in a real reduction in the net present value of the debt, not just cosmetic adjustments. A combination of principal haircuts, maturity extensions, grace periods, and low coupons will be necessary. Contingent instruments could also be considered, such as financial tools linked to oil prices or GDP, which would allow creditors to benefit from upside while protecting the state on the downside. It also requires a credible investment plan for PDVSA and the oil sector,” says Judith Arnal.
Inflation adds another layer of complexity. Prices rose 6.3% in May, less than in previous months, but the improvement is relative. According to Bloomberg monthly data, cumulative inflation between January and May is around 102%, meaning prices doubled in just five months. Venezuela must also demonstrate that it can stabilize its currency, organize public finances, and publish reliable data.
“To restore market confidence, Venezuela needs statistical credibility after years without reliable data. Conducting a debt sustainability analysis without IMF backing, as appears to be the case, is not advisable. It also requires rule of law and respect for property rights. Investors need to be convinced that expropriation risk has disappeared, along with monetary and fiscal stabilization,” Arnal concludes.
The Flight of Misfortune: the 147 Deportees from the United States Who Ended Up Beneath the Rubble in Venezuela
They had arrived in their homeland, and the homeland had received them just hours before Venezuela turned into a mass grave of concrete and buried bodies. They returned with nothing—only the clothes on their backs and themselves—returning in a way they were never meant to, after leaving the country where they had gone to seek everything.
On the morning of Wednesday, June 24, Melvin Maldonado, head of the mission in charge of managing the national repatriation program, released a video of the new 147 deportees from the United States, those on flight 164, and praised how generous the homeland was in accepting them back. The group appeared satisfied at Simón Bolívar International Airport, relieved after leaving detention centers in Texas, Georgia, or Miami behind. Shortly after, Maldonado’s post was flooded with questions: “Please, where are those who arrived? We are looking for them, how can we find out about our relatives? Why haven’t they returned home? Does anyone know about Daniel Henrique? Johana Pineda? Where are the people from flight 164?”
Daniel Salcedo, one of the missing deportees.
“That one over there is my brother-in-law!” Verónica Nieves recognized him from behind in the video released by Maldonado. It was undoubtedly him—Yamil Caldera, 32 years old—the man in black pants and a red shirt, eager to reach Cumaná in the state of Sucre. He had been detained months earlier in a Walmart supermarket alongside his wife by agents from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and they were later transferred to the Eloy Detention Center in Tucson, Arizona. He was deported that Wednesday; she still had a court hearing pending.
Once in Maiquetía, Caldera had time to call his family and confirm that, after several hours of flight from Texas, he had landed in his country. Anderson Antonio Pérez, 33, who had been living for a year and a half in Montgomery, Alabama, called his family around four in the afternoon. “He spoke with his wife, said they had arrived and that they were going to be assigned so that, the next day, they would bring him here to Barquisimeto, but nothing else was ever heard from him,” says his sister, Yujaby Elizabeth Díaz Pérez.
From the airport facilities, the deported Venezuelans—120 men, 19 women, and seven children—were taken by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada in the state of La Guaira, when no one yet knew that they were in fact being taken toward the very mouth of the strongest earthquakes Venezuelans had felt beneath their feet in more than a century. It was not yet 18:04 local time, the exact moment that would tear their lives apart forever.
The Hotel Santuario La Llanada, a building with no luxury, managed by the Misión Negra Hipólita and located on a mountain a little over half an hour from Caracas, was in the past the headquarters of the San Benito School. It once provided services to homeless people and those with addiction problems, and later became an isolation site for travelers arriving infected with Covid-19 at Maiquetía Airport during the pandemic. Since the administrations of Donald Trump and the Chávez government established a deportation agreement, the hotel has been the place where migrants have been received. This year, the total number of Venezuelans returned to their country by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is unknown, but in 2025 the ICE Flight Monitor tracker recorded 73 deportation flights to Venezuela, operated twice a week, carrying nearly 14,000 people.
Once at the hotel, the new arrivals were subjected to certain protocols: medical checks, vaccinations, and ID processing. In one of the dormitories was Joan, 28, who was detained by ICE on June 13 while heading to work in Florida, where his six-year-old daughter and his wife remained. The family was desperate for him to leave the El Paso detention center and return to Venezuela.
“We tried through lawyers to get him out on bail, but the costs were too high, we didn’t have the resources to pay, and we decided that he would sign a voluntary departure, and he did so,” his wife Daniela says over the phone.
On Wednesday, at the hotel, Joan had showered and was about to go to sleep after an exhausting journey. He sat on one of the bunk beds, felt dizzy, and saw everything moving around him, as if the God of the world were shaking them all in anger. He managed to put on his shoes and a shirt, took three long steps, and shouted: “It’s an earthquake, it’s an earthquake!”
Right now he cannot say a word; “he is in shock,” his wife Daniela speaks for him: “When he was about to reach the door, the hotel collapsed, and he was trapped under the rubble. He says he survived because a bunk bed fell on top of him, and the mattresses helped him withstand the weight. He was under the rubble for three hours, digging himself out, and managed to escape on his own. When he got out, he tried to help as much as he could, tried to rescue several people alive and others who unfortunately did not make it.”
At that point, no one in the hotel could grasp the scale of the damage caused by the earthquakes, which, according to the UN, could leave around 50,000 missing. For the moment, everything that happened was happening there, in the terracotta-roofed hotel that had collapsed on top of them. Those who could began to emerge from the rubble, some stayed to help those still buried. “The survivors helped with the rescue, but we had no tools—we’re talking about a roof weighing almost 1,000 kilos, who can handle that?” said Juan Manuel Fernández Quintero, one of the 147 deportees, who only later learned he had suffered four broken ribs in the impact.
The survivors, who barely knew each other, who were not neighbors, nor family, nor friends, and who did not even know each other’s names beyond the nicknames they had picked up during confinement in the United States (“El Gocho,” “Pelo Pintado,” “El Caraqueño”), were nothing more than battered, dust-covered, absent bodies—the victims no one came to help for hours, people who had expected their return to be bearable after everything they had endured in detention.
By midnight on Friday, the parents of 21-year-old Anderson Daniel Salcedo Lozano were practically on duty at the José María Vargas Hospital in Caracas. Their son remains intubated, both his legs were amputated, and his prognosis is critical. His parents have searched for someone to blame and have found one: “the Venezuelan government,” they say. One of the survivors, also admitted to intensive care, told them that the deportees who remained in the hotel begged the SEBIN officers to “open the doors, open them, because it was shaking,” and they did not open them. “They left them locked up as if they were thieves, criminals,” says the mother, Yulis Salcedo.
“If they are returning to their homeland, why are they handed over to SEBIN [the main intelligence agency of the Venezuelan government]? If they bring them from there, process them and send each one to their home. How is it possible that they bring them from there, where they went looking for a better life, and keep them detained?” Salcedo asks through tears. “Why didn’t they open the door if they knew they had no criminal record? I am in so much pain, so much. My son just wanted to return to his homeland, because the U.S. government did not allow him to work there, and look how they receive them here, like prisoners, like detainees. Why didn’t they let them go? If many are dead today, it is because SEBIN did not open the door, and no official has come to the hospital to ask about any of the deportees.”
The Victims of Trump and the Catastrophe
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who has been continuously answering calls from senior officials in recent days, held conversations with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who committed to sending rescuers, specialized equipment, and humanitarian assistance. Trump himself reiterated this on his Truth Social platform: “The United States is ready, willing, and able to help!” he said. “We will be there for our new and wonderful friends.”
Trump’s words do not resonate with almost anyone, least of all with the families of the deportees. His administration turned around 650,000 Venezuelans into undocumented migrants, stripping them of any legal protection; it sent more than 250 to the feared Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador; it labeled them gang members, terrorists, and criminals, and has detained hundreds in centers across the country.
Arturo Alejandro Morales was one of those detained in El Paso, Texas, and his father, Arturo José Morales, never knew he had been deported on flight 164. He assumed he was fine, still detained, but safe. On Thursday, June 25, a day after the tragedy in Venezuela, his son turned 25, and it was only then that the father learned not only that his son had been deported, but also that he was one of the victims at the Hotel Santuario La Llanada.
“A friend of mine, who was imprisoned with him in El Paso, arrived on the same flight to Venezuela, and when the earthquake happened he told me about it. He told me to try to find him because they were together at the hotel and he never saw him come out,” Morales says.
Four days have now passed, nearly 100 hours—the time in which hope of finding life grows thinner, the moment when Venezuela begins to turn into a collective graveyard for those who could not pull themselves out from under the rubble. Logic suggests that the chances of finding survivors are lower, but the families do not believe it. When the official death toll stood at 164 in the first hours of the disaster, people searched for their loved ones with the same intensity as when the figure rose to 971 deaths, or now that it exceeds 1,500. People continue speaking of the “missing,” to avoid speaking of death. That is what keeps them standing when everything around them has collapsed.
Morales has asked for his son to be searched for, now that he himself cannot go and dig through the rubble with his hands. “I am still waiting for a response from the people who have been searching for him since last night. I don’t know anything,” he says.
Other families of the deportees have created profiles and distributed them desperately so they can be located in hospitals or among the rubble of the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they say almost no rescue reinforcements have arrived. “There are still people alive there; there have hardly been any rescuers, people who can provide assistance,” said Verónica Nieves, the sister-in-law searching for Yamil Calderas. Some relatives have reported that SEBIN officers are not allowing them to go help those trapped under the collapsed structure, and that at least until Sunday afternoon rescue efforts had been very slow and limited.
Venezuelan Police Officers Arrested for Alleged Looting Following the Earthquakes
Four Venezuelan police officers have been arrested and face dismissal after being accused of looting cash from the rubble of a collapsed building during last week’s devastating twin earthquakes.
Local residents and national and international rescue teams continue searching for survivors following the two consecutive earthquakes, which have killed nearly 2,000 people, left more than 10,000 injured, and tens of thousands missing.
Videos circulating on social media showed angry people attempting to prevent members of the Scientific, Criminal and Criminalistic Investigation Corps (CICPC) from improperly taking a safe full of U.S. dollars from a ruined building in the state of La Guaira, one of the worst affected areas.
In a statement, the CICPC said that four officers had been arrested and removed from their duties, and that disciplinary proceedings had been initiated for their “immediate dismissal.”
“In light of recent events in the areas affected by the earthquakes in the state of La Guaira, it was confirmed that a group of officers, deviating from their duties and taking advantage of rescue and humanitarian operations, acted improperly by appropriating valuables found among the rubble,” the statement said.
“This individual, reprehensible conduct, contrary to the fundamental values of our doctrine, directly undermines the prestige and public respect of the institution.”
Although a three-year-old child was rescued alive from the rubble of a building in La Guaira on Tuesday, hopes of finding more survivors are fading. Meanwhile, public anger is growing over the government’s slow rescue efforts and the conduct of some members of the armed forces and police.
Volunteers, many equipped with little more than shovels, ropes, and their own hands, say they are doing everything possible to locate survivors, while some members of the Venezuelan military and police are allegedly looting, blocking aid, and misappropriating donations.
On Wednesday, hundreds of volunteers were still arriving in La Guaira, the epicenter of the disaster, to offer assistance.
“We want to do everything possible to help,” said 35-year-old Fabiano Nadales, a volunteer from the city of Valencia traveling in the back of a pickup truck with a group of about 15 medical students and amateur rescuers.
Nadales said he still held out hope of finding more survivors. “Miracles exist. Some people can survive ten days,” he said as his convoy remained stuck in a massive traffic jam.
“It’s very hard… but we’re just trying to help,” said 25-year-old Estefanía Callejas, a third-year medical student from Valencia, who was also among those struggling to reach the site in hopes of assisting the thousands of lightly injured victims.
Senior government officials have attributed growing public outrage and reports of military involvement in looting, as well as delays in aid delivery, to misinformation. They have urged the public to ignore manipulation campaigns on social media and to trust official information.
However, some volunteer rescuers say they see little evidence that authorities have rushed to provide assistance, one week after the disaster struck.
“You can see firefighters and the Mexican rescue team Los Topos,” said Alexander Delgado, a teacher from Venezuela’s Aragua state. “But you don’t see the state itself.”
His team has spent five days clearing debris and listening carefully for signs of life under the intense Caribbean sun in La Guaira. They are supported by other local volunteers who provide water, masks, ice, and information about the Hugo Chávez residential complex, an eight-tower development, six of which are now reduced to rubble.
The Venezuelan Ministry of Communications, which handles media inquiries on behalf of the armed forces and police, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
By Tuesday, six days in, there were two international rescue teams and some local firefighters, as well as a Venezuelan forensic service truck, but they still lacked heavy equipment, Delgado said.
Mijaed Díaz, a veterinarian who joined other volunteers, also said more help from Venezuelan authorities was needed. “I would like to see a greater presence of public institutions, which are the ones that are really responsible for this,” he said while searching for bags for four bodies recently pulled from the rubble. “But in the end, we are used to making do with the bare minimum.”
Daniela Armas, who was waiting for food at an emergency shelter in La Guaira, said the situation was desperate. “Supplies are being distributed here, but sometimes people almost kill each other over food,” she told Agence France-Presse. “It’s like a cockfight.”
After initially thanking civilian volunteers, the government restricted public access to La Guaira on Friday, angering people trying to help find survivors.
A government official stationed at a checkpoint in La Guaira told Reuters on Sunday that he had witnessed police and military personnel seizing aid from three trucks carrying supplies, boasting about what they had managed to “get.”
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodríguez is seeking to consolidate her power after the United States ousted her predecessor Nicolás Maduro in January.
“Delcy and her team have been in power for 26 years and only have one script,” said James Story, who served as U.S. ambassador to Venezuela until 2023. “They take credit for everything positive, blame others for everything negative, and try to control the narrative.”
However, Donald Trump has praised the U.S. relationship with Rodríguez, and American companies have shown interest in everything from oil to gold.
U.S. Chargé d’Affaires John Barrett also endorsed Rodríguez’s handling of the disaster, telling Univision on Monday that he had “a lot of confidence” in local authorities.
The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors, one of the worst seismic disasters in Latin American history, caused entire residential complexes to collapse on June 24.
Preliminary satellite data analysis suggests that more than 58,000 buildings may have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake, far exceeding official estimates of the devastation. On Monday, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, reported that 855 buildings had suffered damage, including 189 that collapsed completely.
