Rescuers 'pulling people out with their bare hands' as Venezuela earthquakes kill 920 - BBC

0:40Drone footage reveals collapsed Venezuelan buildings from above. 00:00:40, play videoDrone footage reveals collapsed Venezuelan buildings from above

0:18Moment earthquake hits during festival celebrations. 00:00:18, play videoMoment earthquake hits during festival celebrations

0:23International rescue teams arrive in La Guaira. 00:00:23, play videoInternational rescue teams arrive in La Guaira

1:10'People are in shock' - Venezuelan opposition leader. 00:01:10, play video'People are in shock' - Venezuelan opposition leader

0:54Most Venezuelan city in the US rallies to help. 00:00:54, play videoMost Venezuelan city in the US rallies to help

0:35Aerial footage reveals destruction in coastal Venezuela. 00:00:35, play videoAerial footage reveals destruction in coastal Venezuela

0:50Videos show earthquake chaos across Venezuela. 00:00:50, play videoVideos show earthquake chaos across Venezuela

Aid distribution is under way on the streets in the state of La Guaira, which has suffered some of the heaviest damage.

These are some of the latest pictures from the area.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

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Image source, AFP via Getty Images

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Mexican army rescue team members with sniffer dogs at Simón Bolívar International Airport in La Guaira

Countries around the world - including the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Colombia - are sending specialised sniffer dogs to Venezuela with their emergency teams.

Dogs are critically important in search and rescue operations. With a sense of smell between 10,000 and 100,000 times as strong as humans, depending on the breed, trained dogs can quickly locate people trapped under dense rubble.

They can also traverse rugged terrain and access hard-to-reach crevices, making them much faster and more efficient at rescuing survivors than humans.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

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A Colombian firefighter with a search-and-rescue dog stands before departing for Venezuela

Image source, Anadolu via Getty Images

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Salvadoran soldiers bring shoe-wearing rescue dogs as they prepare to board a plane

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Dogs wait with a Brazilian rescue team before being deployed

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Vanessa Silva

Reporting from La Guaira

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Forty-eight hours after the powerful earthquakes that shook the Venezuelan coast, aid is beginning to arrive.

In La Guaira state, destruction is everywhere - hundreds of structures have been destroyed. Buildings have been reduced to a twisted mass of cement and beams.

Families are waiting in front of the rubble, hoping for a miracle. Natacha Díaz, a mother almost voiceless, tells the BBC that her two daughters are trapped in the small shopping centre where they worked as manicurists. She cries as she holds a photo of her daughters on her mobile phone.

A few metres away, Andreína Valerio, with little sleep, and accompanied by her brother-in-law, waits for a miracle that will bring back Santiaguito, her one-and-a-half-year-old son. "My only son," she tells me through tears.

Two uncles and the boy's grandparents, who cared for the baby while his mother worked in Caracas, are also trapped in this family.

The state is militarised. Police, rescuers and volunteers from other states have arrived. Although rescue teams from other countries are already in Venezuela, they are not yet in this area of Caraballeda.

Around midday, we saw the arrival of heavy machinery to remove debris... A hydraulic crane only began working around 14:15 at this point on the coast.

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Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, tells the BBC that humanitarian teams on the ground are seeing "horrific damage".

Egeland says Venezuela is ill-prepared and vulnerable in an emergency situation, as it already has a "crumbling infrastructure" after decades of underinvestment.

He says poor economic and social conditions have seen millions of young people leave the country, with the least resilient sections of society left behind.

Egeland says: "If there is a rebuilding and there must be a rebuilding, this could be the opportunity for a restart, a reboot between the acting government of Venezuela, the neighbouring countries, the international community and especially the US.

"There has to be a major investment not only in the humanitarian relief which is underfunded, but also in reconstruction - water, electricity, sewage, healthcare - all of what is needed to have a functioning society."

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Cecilia Barría

BBC News Mundo

Image source, EPA

Emergency teams are still searching for people trapped in buildings that collapsed in the earthquakes.

"Rescue workers are overwhelmed. They are pulling people out with their bare hands," student Antoan Marín told BBC News Mundo from Caracas.

Disrupted communications and a lack of resources made the initial emergency response difficult. But now rescue teams are being deployed more quickly to the most critical areas.

One case that has given hope to people across Venezuela is the rescue in La Guaira of three young siblings, who emerged from the rubble with dust covering their faces, according to footage broadcast on state television.

"Come here, my child, come here," a man says to the first child as he emerges alive from a gap between chunks of concrete.

A girl then comes out, and the man asks her: "Are you siblings?", to which she replies: "Yes, there are three of us."

Shortly afterwards, with a little more difficulty, the third sister emerges, sobbing and covered in dust from head to toe.

• Read the full story here on BBC News Mundo

The death toll in the two powerful earthquakes has reached at least 920 people, top Venezuelan lawmaker Jorge Rodríguez says on Venezuelan television.

In addition, at least 3,360 people have been injured and 172 are believed still to be trapped, according to state TV.

Earlier today, Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said the death toll was 589, with 2,980 injured.

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Nick Johnson

News correspondent

A UK military flight carrying British search and rescue teams, specialist search dogs and drones has taken off from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, bound for Venezuela.

The team on board the Voyager aircraft includes specialists from 14 UK fire services, led by Merseyside Fire and Rescue.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer says: “The UK stands in solidarity with all those affected, particularly those who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods."

He adds that the government is "making £2 million of emergency humanitarian funding available and are working closely with international partners to ensure vital support reaches those most in need as quickly as possible".

Image source, PA Media

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A Voyager aircraft carrying rescue teams to Venezuela - photo taken in March 2026

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"There was a small shopping centre here," says Natacha Diaz, standing next to the site of a destroyed building in La Guaira. "It was where my two daughters worked."

She tells the BBC her missing daughters are aged 22 and 23.

"They were with their friends," she says. "I just want them to be found. I have faith and hope that they are there."

"I just want them back with me. They are all I have, please."

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Olivia Ireland

Live reporter

Image source, Instagram

The wife of Venezuelan footballer Héctor Bello died while saving their daughter during this week's earthquakes.

Bello wrote on Instagram that "his precious love", named by Venezuelan news outlets as his wife Andrea, saved the life of their toddler during two powerful quakes.

"I'll tell her the story of how you saved her, my love - how you gave your own life for our daughter, how you were a brave woman who never abandoned her, even as you took your last breaths," Bello wrote in his post.

In a series of posts, Bello said he travelled to Caracas, where his daughter was in hospital.

"My daughter and her aunt are doing well, they won't be discharged today - they're staying at the hospital. Thank you so much for supporting me through this immense pain," he posted overnight on Friday.

In a separate Instagram story, Bello wrote: "How do I explain to your daughter that you lost your life to save hers, and that I wasn't there to do anything? How do I explain it? Give me strength now."

You can read more here.

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Dan Johnson

On the Venezuela border in Cúcuta, Colombia

Cúcuta airport is close to the Venezuelan border. At arrivals, we met a Mexican firefighter who’d got on a plane and offered his expertise in search and rescue.

The Venezuelan military is going to pick him up and drive him to the worst-hit areas to join the frantic effort to save people from the ruins of collapsed buildings.

Thousands are reported missing. The uncertainty of that wait for news is also drawing people here.

A Venezuelan man who didn’t want to share any details told us he was returning to his country after years living overseas because he hasn’t heard from relatives since the earthquake hit. He wants to see for himself what’s happened to their neighbourhood and whether they survived.

Communication issues, poor roads and cut-off communities all make co-ordinating the search more challenging.

There are hopeful stories of successful rescue but as this disaster goes into a third day it’s becoming harder to stay optimistic.

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Our colleague Vanessa Silva is now in La Guaira, one of the areas worst affected by the earthquakes in Venezuela.

She says the situation on the ground is still difficult - while international rescue teams are arriving in Venezuela, they have not been deployed to all the places she is visiting today.

Watch her report below.

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Buildings collapsed and roads were damaged after two earthquakes struck in Venezuela, forcing residents to find alternative shelter - with some resorting to mattresses and tents on the streets.

Here are some of the latest pictures from the scene.

Image source, EPA

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Tents are set up in the city of Catia La Mar as rescuers continue to look for survivors

Image source, EPA

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Also in Catia La Mar, a residential building appears to be very unsteady after the two earthquakes

Image source, EPA

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On the third floor, a dog looks for a way out

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Meanwhile, aid has started to arrive - here bottles of water delivered by the Colombian air force arrive in Venezuela

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Muir Gibb, a teacher at The British School in Caracas, was watching the Scotland v Brazil World Cup match in a bar when the earthquake struck.

He tells the BBC News Channel how "the floor started to shake", and "parts of the wall, parts of the glass started to fall down".

"Even trying to walk was difficult," he adds, because the floor "was like liquid".

He describes returning to his apartment building to get some clothes for the night.

"All of the walls were cracked and damaged," he says. "It was eerie, it was like being in a horror movie."

Gibb says he feels "very lucky" he could sleep on the floor of his school that night. "I'm certainly not complaining because I think that's probably much better than the majority of people."

Image source, Muir Gibb

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Muir Gibb's apartment building has been heavily damaged by the earthquake

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Venezuela's Fiesta de San Juan Bautista was in full flow when the earthquakes struck on Wednesday.

The festival, a celebration of African culture, is held in towns and villages with a strong Afro-Venezuelan heritage.

You can watch the moment the earthquake hit as the drums played below.

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Mark Poynting

Climate and science reporter

The outer layer of the Earth is divided into different sections called tectonic plates - a bit like the Earth’s puzzle pieces.

These plates move very slowly - perhaps only a few centimetres a year, which is roughly the same rate as your fingernails grow.

Northern Venezuela sits on the boundary of the Caribbean and South American plates.

As they move relative to one another, parts of the plates can get "stuck", and stress builds up over a long period of time.

Eventually, this stress becomes too much and the plates jolt or slip back into place.

That releases the huge amounts of energy experienced as an earthquake.

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