An ordinary night in Venezuela became one of the worst days ever recorded in history.
Hours after an earthquake shook up buildings and terrified thousands of people running into streets, search and rescue teams began their work digging through the debris.
In fact, one of the largest hotels in that area completely collapsed, illustrating how strong and severe the tremors were from what is regarded as one of the worst earthquakes ever to occur.
Extraordinarily, the disaster consisted of two separate but closely timed earthquakes (the first was measured at 7.2 magnitude and the second at 7.5).
These two huge earthquakes were able to release enormous amounts of energy within such a brief period of times, leaving very little time for a community to react.
After the second tremor, many people felt that this second earthquake was scarier than the first.
With the first tremor shaking buildings already weakened by the initial quake, some buildings that had been previously stable began collapsing as well. Dust clouds were created from all the mills of dust created, as sound reverberated throughout multiple cities from the sirens of emergency services.
Many coastal regions were extremely damaged; including La Guaira, which is located just north of Caracas, Venezuela. La Guaira is the location of one of the busiest ports in Venezuela and also has the main international airport in Venezuela, so it serves as a major transportation corridor through the northern part of the country.
The most alarming photographs emerged from Macuto Beach area, a coastal town located in this region.
A very popular beachfront hotel collapsed nearly completely after the earthquake struck. This towering multi-story hotel had over one hundred guest rooms and ended up as loads of concrete and twisted metal. The only remaining portion of the hotel was part of the entrance; debris completely surrounded the site.
Video footage of damage to other nearby coastal buildings appeared from the same area as well.
However, the devastation was not limited to tourist regions.
The destruction extended into Caracas, where residents also experienced violent shudders due to the earthquake activity. Numerous buildings collapsed, fuel supplies have been interrupted, and emergency teams raced through damaged neighborhoods in search of any survivors who may have been buried under the rubble.
Some people were rescued from collapsed structures again providing hope to teams who have been working throughout the night in very arduous conditions.
Emergency responders have been very busy rescuing survivors; therefore, continuing 24/7 rescue operations throughout this region.
Authorities quickly declared a state of emergency.
Law enforcement personnel (police officers), civil protection teams, volunteer fire fighters and emergency medical personnel were sent into the damaged areas to assist with evacuation and recovery efforts. Schools were closed until further notice; and non-essential work activity was suspended until such time as prioritising the safety of the public.
Transportation was also severely disrupted.
Simón Bolívar International Airport was completely shut down because of damage done to parts of its infrastructure. Videos taken within the terminal showed terrified passengers fleeing for their lives as pieces of debris fell from above and the dust from both the debris and the collapsed ceilings filled the air.
Experts warned that there was another very serious potential danger that was not readily visible.
Earthquake scientists said that twin quakes represented the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Venezuela in more than one hundred years. A look through the historical data shows that the last earthquake in Venezuela of comparable magnitude was in 1900; thus, making it one of the most significant natural disasters to have ever occurred in generations.
The humanitarian outlook was not yet known.
While there had been dozens of confirmed deaths, authorities cautioned that the final number of deaths could grow substantially as search teams were able to enter many of the severely damaged buildings to look for additional trapped individuals. In many instances, these individuals could not yet be reached by emergency responders, and emergency personnel were tirelessly searching through areas where they could potentially still get to the trapped people.
Additionally, scientists stated that the overall impacts of this natural disaster may be extensive due to the scale of the earthquakes and the number of people who live in the areas affected. Major natural disasters (like this one) can take huge amounts of time to recover from and usually take a number of years to recover from as opposed to minutes, hours and days from the initial disaster.
Local residents know the power of statistics but they do not reveal everything. It takes statistics plus the real experiences of the people that live in the numerous impacted neighbourhoods to properly understand the impact of this disaster.
Many people had their lives abruptly changed due to this disaster that occurred within less than one minute. Real estate is a commodity that provides shelter and commercial space, but for many businesses and homeowners and renters, all they had, along with their immediate families, has been ruined either by being destroyed or made uninhabitable. Many of the things and many of the structures that provided the people of Venezuela with a record of some of the best tourist destinations have been destroyed by this earthquake.
Within minutes after those two earthquakes occurred, the familiar skyline of many cities changed; hotels were reduced to rubble; roadways, bridges, businesses and homes became emergency areas; and thousands of individual lives have suddenly been thrown into a condition of uncertainty.
Venezuela’s focus for recovery, through its rescue and recovery operations, is to save lives on an immediate basis, to support on a survivor basis, and to continue on the journey of recovery from this multi-century disaster.
