CARACAS, Venezuela — Rescue teams raced Thursday to the areas hardest hit by a pair of powerful earthquakes that rocked Venezuela, killing at least 164 people, injuring nearly 1,000 and trapping many beneath collapsed buildings.
Wednesday evening’s 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a century and could be felt throughout the region. The country’s main airport was damaged and closed, while buildings were evacuated in places as far away as Brazil’s Amazon, about 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) from Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
Television broadcasts Thursday showed rescue workers using power tools to work their way into piles of rubble where buildings once stood. Panicked residents of the capital were sent pouring into the streets, and after the quakes, many people walked among the debris searching for the missing among collapsed buildings and toppled electric poles.
Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who gave the latest death toll early Thursday, said authorities were shifting rescue teams from other parts of the country to La Guaira, which sits north of Caracas on the coast. Officials were trying to make the most of the daylight hours to speed up efforts to rescue people believed to remain trapped under the rubble, she said.
Footage on state TV showed three children, covered in dust but alive, pulled from the rubble in La Guaira state, which Rodríguez described as a “disaster zone” and one of the areas hardest hit by the quakes because of the large number of collapsed buildings.
“Dozens of buildings have collapsed there … and we are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives,” Ms. Rodriguez said.
Video shared online appeared to show dozens of people, some lying on the ground and others on hospital beds, being treated outside a hospital in La Guaira.
While Venezuela sits near multiple fault lines, its position straddling the South American and Caribbean plates makes strong earthquakes much less common than in other parts of Latin America.
Ms. Rodriguez appealed to businesses to make heavy construction equipment available for rescue operations, adding that search and rescue teams certified by the United Nations were on their way to Venezuela.
Ms. Rodriguez declared a state of emergency in an address to the nation late Wednesday. She said the government was creating a $200 million reconstruction fund for hospitals and homes damaged by the earthquakes, and had instructed the economy and finance ministers to oversee the effort.
Offers of help poured in from countries around the world.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States is “immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.”
“We will have a whole government response,” Rubio said Thursday in Bahrain. “It will be big. It will be fast. It will be effective.”
He added that one of the runways at Caracas’ international airport was cracked in the earthquake, making landing aircraft there difficult.
Ms. Rodriguez — who became acting president after an American military operation captured her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro, and brought him to the U.S. to stand trial — thanked U.S. President Trump. She said in an X post later that she spoke with Mr. Rubio by phone without sharing details. She also expressed thanks to the leaders of various nations who have sent messages of support and offers of help.
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