A Venezuelan father witnessed the rescue of his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson from the basement of a collapsed building in La Guaira, where they had been trapped beneath seven stories after the devastating earthquakes of June 24.
The account of the rescue, published on Instagram by José Alberto Gallipoli Lameda, became one of the most moving testimonies of the tragedy.
The video captures the moment when the three survivors are pulled from the rubble as family and friends welcome them with relief and overwhelming emotion.
"Yesterday morning, I went down to the basement of the collapsed building. The scene was heartbreaking. I shouted my son's name, Jofram, with the last breath of faith I had left. And amid the chaos, I heard his response. A faint whisper, barely audible. They were alive," wrote the father.
According to his account, Jofram, his wife, and their young son were buried under the entire structure of the building, which collapsed during the two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 that shook Venezuela just 39 seconds apart.
"Seven floors collapsed on him and his family, and there he was, responding from the basement. Jofram showed me what it means to be a man built on rock," the father added.
Gallipoli attributed survival to both the efforts of the rescue teams and the strength of her son: "The rescuers did the hard work, but his will to live sustained the space. The abyss is not the end; it is the workshop where unbreakable beings are forged."
The happy ending came after the father himself posted a first video—which also went viral—showing him desperately searching for Jofram among the rubble of the building in La Guaira, where he found his son's truck crushed. That footage generated thousands of reactions on social media before the outcome of the rescue was revealed.
"My son, my daughter-in-law, and my grandson are back. My family is complete. The physical structure has fallen, but the true architects of life are ready to rebuild, from scratch, on a more solid and real foundation," emphasized Gallipoli.
"I have no words to thank the rescuers," he concluded his message, which garnered more than a million views in just a few hours.
The rescue of this family comes in the context of a catastrophe of historical proportions. The two earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24 are the strongest recorded in the country since 1900, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The epicenter was located in the state of Yaracuy, in the municipality of Yumare, at a depth of between 10 and 13 kilometers, and the coastal area of La Guaira was the most devastated, with dozens of buildings collapsed in Catia la Mar, Macuto, and Caraballeda.
This Friday, acting president Delcy Rodríguez confirmed 589 fatalities and 2,980 injuries, a figure that nearly quadrupled the toll from the previous day. At least 346 buildings, hospitals, and shopping centers were either collapsed or severely damaged, and more than 200 aftershocks were recorded.
The international response included rescue teams from the Dominican Republic - the first country to land in Venezuela - El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. The Southern Command mobilized military forces to support the efforts, a notable gesture given the historical antagonism between Washington and Nicolás Maduro's government.
The U.S. Geological Survey has warned that its probabilistic estimation system places the final number of victims at a 42% probability between 10,000 and 100,000, making this disaster a humanitarian emergency of still uncertain magnitude.
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