Carlos Colmenares, 12 years old, survived more than 120 hours trapped under the rubble of a nine-story building in Macuto, La Guaira state, following the devastating earthquake that struck Venezuela on June 24, 2026.
His account, shared this Thursday by Globovisión with images from Actualidad RT, is disturbing for the clarity with which a child faced the possibility of death alone.
When the double earthquake —magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, separated by just 39 seconds— destroyed his home, Carlos reacted in a matter of seconds.
"Everything started shaking violently; I saw the lights flickering and everything began to tremble harshly. I thought as quickly as I could and hid under a table," the minor recounted. That table was the structure that prevented the debris from crushing his face.
Trapped in complete darkness, he turned on his phone’s flashlight to memorize the space before the battery died.
"I grabbed my phone, turned on the flashlight, and scanned around me. That way, when the battery died, I would have a sort of mental map. 'Here's the wall, here's the furniture, and there’s the fridge,' he explained."
For five days, Carlos barely had room to turn his body. To prevent his muscles from stiffening, he alternated between two positions and moved his legs periodically.
"That way, I wouldn't become immobilized, my body wouldn't go numb or shut down," he said. His only source of sustenance was a bottle of hot sauce he found beside him: "The only thing I could take to quench it was a bottle of hot sauce like this."
Absolute darkness was one of the hardest challenges. “When I opened my eyes, it was the same as when they were closed. It was as if I were blind, and that was something hopeless, but I managed to control myself and didn’t waste any more energy,” the boy recalled.
While Carlos remained trapped under the rubble, his father searched with picks and shovels, finding only the lifeless bodies of neighbors.
The rescue came when the child was already at his limit: "I had been screaming for a long time, my voice was tired and I was about to give up. I was really ready to surrender, but a worker heard me, and that’s when they identified me and were able to get me out."
The operation was carried out by the USAR ECU-01 team from the Quito Fire Department, composed of 47 Ecuadorian specialists, in coordination with rescuers from the Dominican Republic and personnel from Venezuela.
To locate him, they used specialized endoscopic cameras before providing him with oxygen and hydration through tubes. Carlos was the only survivor from his building.
The rescue of the minor takes place amidst the worst seismic disaster in Venezuela since 1900.
The updated balance as of this Thursday reports over 2,295 deceased, 11,267 injured, and up to 68,000 missing, with nearly 59,000 buildings damaged or destroyed according to estimates from NASA.
Among the victims are at least 32 missing Cubans, and a Cuban family of six was found dead on June 29 in La Guaira.
The commander Esteban Cárdenas Varela of the Quito Fire Department captured the spirit of the operation with a widely circulated quote: "Here we are not seeing flags; all we are trying to do is save lives. We do not know about flags or borders!"
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