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The six members of a Cuban family who had been missing since the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24 were found dead this Sunday, bringing an end to several days of anguished searches amidst the rubble in La Guaira state.
According to Martí Noticias, based on testimonies from relatives, the bodies were recovered among the debris of the Oasis Beach and Resjurel buildings and the Chipis Beach Hotel in Playa Grande, one of the areas hardest hit by the disaster.
The victims are Yadina de la Caridad Yáñez Linares, 36 years old, a cycling instructor known as "Yadina la Cubana" and originally from Sandino, Pinar del Río; her husband, Alain Rodríguez Rojas, also from that municipality; their son, Dylan Xander Rodríguez Yáñez, just six years old and born in Venezuela; Yadina's mother, Gladys María Linares; and Alain's parents, Raudel Diosdado Rodríguez Cabrera and Teresa Rojas Rodríguez, from Ciego de Ávila.
Yadina was last seen at the gym of the Chipis Beach Hotel in Catia La Mar, shortly before the earthquakes caused the collapse of several buildings. The rest of her family was in the Oasis Beach and Resjurel buildings when the collapse occurred.
The only direct survivor of the family unit is Valentina, Alain's eldest daughter, who resides in Valencia, Venezuela.
Liliane García Linares, sister of Yadina and a resident of the United States, confirmed the discovery of the bodies and explained that the family is now trying to arrange their transportation.
"We are recovering the bodies to cremate them and see if I can bring them to the United States, because the whole family is here," he stated.
The recovery of the remains continues to be complex. Ailin Rodríguez Rojas, Alain's sister, explained that some bodies have already been extracted, but they remain alongside dozens of victims in a storage facility while identification efforts are underway.
"The bodies of the boy, Alain, and my parents have been recovered, but they are in a morgue with other corpses, making identification difficult; we are currently working on that," he noted.
The news has caused deep shock in Sandino, Pinar del Río, where neighbors and friends remember the family as hardworking individuals who were very much loved by the community.
Nidia Ramos, a neighbor from Yadina, described her as "a very enterprising girl, very cheerful, always smiling, with a lot of love for her child," while she recalled that "Gladys didn’t give what she had left over, but shared what she had, without caring if she ended up with nothing the next day."
Like thousands of Cubans, the family had emigrated in search of better economic opportunities. Yadina spent several years traveling between Cuba and Venezuela before finally settling down in that country with her loved ones.
"Cubans emigrate due to the scarcity of everything here and the low wages. We lost it, it’s a very hard blow," lamented Ramos.
The family tragedy occurred amid the earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 that shook the north of Venezuela just 39 seconds apart, deemed by the United States Geological Survey as the most intense recorded in the country since 1900.
The state of La Guaira was declared a disaster zone after the collapse of more than 250 buildings. As of the close of this Sunday, the official toll had risen to 1,719 dead and 5,034 injured, while the UN estimates that around 50,000 people remain missing.
After the earthquakes, at least 32 Cubans were reported missing on citizen platforms, most of them in the La Guaira state. In light of the magnitude of the tragedy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba has set up the phone line 7 8321484 for families to report the status of their loved ones in Venezuela.
A family friend captured the sentiment left by the tragedy among those who knew them: "Today, heaven welcomes a beautiful family—your husband, your son, your mother, your in-laws—always united."
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