A wounded man, shirtless and with visible cuts on his head and torso, was receiving medical attention in the street while recounting how his home collapsed on him during the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, 2026. The organization Vente DDHH shared this Tuesday the testimony of the survivor from Catia La Mar, in the state of La Guaira, where 30% of the buildings were reported to have collapsed according to data from the European Copernicus program.
"The floor collapsed," declared the affected individual, whose home was completely destroyed. The images, recorded on Main Street in La Marina, show the man—middle-aged, bald, and with a gray beard—while a person in medical gloves tends to his wounds amid a scene of rubble and collapsed structures.
The seismic doublet of June 24 —two earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 occurring just 39 seconds apart, with epicenters in the Yaracuy state— is the strongest seismic event recorded in Venezuela since 1900, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Catia La Mar, a coastal city just a few kilometers from the Maiquetía airport, was one of the hardest-hit areas: buildings such as Nautilus and Playamar were reduced to rubble.
The magnitude of the catastrophe continues to grow. The Venezuelan government confirmed on Monday 1,719 dead and 5,034 injured, with 15,866 displaced and more than 22,000 people treated in hospitals and triage points. Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, provided these figures, although the UN estimates that there could be as many as 50,000 people missing and a total of 6.76 million affected.
The citizen platform Encuéntralos reported even more alarming figures: between 55,000 and 60,000 missing persons, of which only about 9,000 had been located at the time of this publication.
A satellite analysis from NASA using data from the Sentinel-1 radar estimated that almost 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed throughout the country, although the agency clarified that the evaluation "should be interpreted as an indicator, not as a census building by building." The USGS assigned a Red Alert —its highest level— and calculated with a 42% probability that the final number of victims could range between 10,000 and 100,000.
Among the affected are dozens of Cubans. At least 32 compatriots remained missing in Caraballeda, Catia La Mar, and Los Corales. A Cuban family of six members died under the rubble in La Guaira, including a six-year-old boy. The girl Vanessa Martínez was also confirmed dead on Monday, while her brother Dayan continued to be missing.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated the direct damage from the earthquakes at 6.7 billion dollars, equivalent to 6% of Venezuela's GDP, with a total potential impact ranging from 10.05 to 20.1 billion. The earthquakes struck an infrastructure already deteriorated by decades of management under the Chavista regime, exacerbating the massive collapse of buildings throughout the coastal region.
A magnitude 4.6 aftershock shook the area on Monday without reporting any new fatalities, while rescue efforts continued amidst the debris of one of the worst natural disasters in Venezuelan history.
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