The urban search and rescue team USAR El Salvador achieved one of the most emotional rescues of the Venezuelan seismic disaster this Saturday: extracting alive Nayarit Colmenare, a 39-year-old woman who had been trapped for over 48 hours beneath the rubble of a collapsed building in the state of La Guaira, after more than seven hours of continuous work.
The operation was followed in real-time by the Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele, who posted updates on his social media while his teams worked in extreme conditions.
"We have been trying to rescue Nayarit Colmenare, 39 years old, for 7 hours. We have already managed to establish visual contact with her. She was on the sixth floor when the structure collapsed. Her health condition is very critical, but she is still alive," Bukele wrote before the rescue was confirmed.
Rescuers were able to access a vein to administer intravenous fluids while they continued to extract her from the rubble, a critical medical maneuver that helped keep her stable.
It was Heidy Yaneth Aguilar Morales, a licensed nurse and member of the medical team from USAR El Salvador, who managed to establish direct contact with Nayarit and participated in her extraction. Bukele publicly identified her after the rescue.
Upon confirming the success of the operation, the Salvadoran leader published: "We have rescued Nayarit! Now we must fight to stabilize it. God, allow us to save her life."
The Presidency of El Salvador also released the message: "Nayarit has already been rescued and is receiving medical attention. With God's help, we will continue to assist our Venezuelan brothers."
The rescue takes place amidst a tragedy of historical proportions. Two earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 shook northern Venezuela on June 24, 2026, with just a 39-second interval between them, leaving at least 920 dead and more than 3,360 injured according to the report on June 26. These were the strongest tremors recorded in the country since 1900.
The state of La Guaira suffered some of the most significant damage, with over 346 buildings collapsed throughout the country. The area was declared a "natural disaster zone" by the acting president Delcy Rodríguez.
El Salvador responded to the emergency by sending six planes with 300 rescuers and 150 tons of equipment, forming one of the most significant international contingents.
The USAR group is composed of Civil Protection, the Armed Forces, the National Civil Police, the Fire Department, and the Salvadoran Red Cross.
This Saturday, the Salvadoran team carried out a second prominent rescue: they also found Camila Sofía Medina Rivas alive, a 15-year-old teenager trapped on the ninth floor of the Bahía Mar building in La Guaira.
More than a thousand rescuers from 16 countries, including the United States, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Qatar, have been deployed to Venezuela to respond to the emergency.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) issued a Red Alert and estimated a 42% probability that the final number of casualties could range between 10,000 and 100,000 people.
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