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Rescue teams from Spain, Portugal, and Venezuela confirmed this Friday that they found no signs of life from Fabio, the nine-year-old boy trapped under the rubble of the Taihiti building in Caraballeda, La Guaira state, since the double earthquake that struck northern Venezuela on June 24.
"No signals have been found," rescuers confirmed to the EFE agency after a day of inspections that included drones, tracking dogs, sonar, and ground-penetrating radar deployed throughout the morning at the twelve-story structure.
The building shows new cracks, and its condition is classified as very delicate by the search personnel, who warned that the structure is actively moving, complicating any rescue operation.
Despite the grim official report, Francisco Bastardo, the child's father, refuses to give up hope.
«I do not lose hope that my son will appear. As long as the Government allows me, I will continue searching for my boy because I have not seen a real body, but I feel it here in my heart, I feel it in my body that Fabio is still alive because he responds to my calls,» she told EFE.
Bastardo is a merchant sailor and was navigating through the Strait of Hormuz when the earthquakes occurred.
She arrived in Venezuela on Sunday, June 29, and has since maintained a permanent vigil in front of the collapsed building where her son and the child's mother, Kiriaki Navarro, went missing.
The man recalled that he was in a videoconference with his family at the exact moment of the tremor: it was Fabio himself who ran to alert his mother.
"The youngest was the one who realized it; my child has always been a very smart boy. He ran to the living room and told his mom that there was going to be an earthquake," Bastardo recalled, before adding, "His mom hugs him, and then the signal goes out."
The child's grandmother, Rebeca, asserted that last Sunday Fabio responded to the family's calls with a whistle, and that on the morning of this Friday, they heard noises similar to knocks coming from inside the building.
"No one has been able to do anything in that building," shouted the woman in front of the rubble, as reported by the Clarín newspaper, demanding that the authorities allow them to enter to search for their relatives.
The search for Fabio takes place a day after the successful rescue of Hernán Gil, a 43-year-old Venezuelan security guard who survived eight days under the rubble of a building in the coastal urbanization of Playa del Mar, in an operation lasting over 72 hours with the involvement of more than 100 international rescuers.
That rescue ignited hope for the families who are still awaiting news of their loved ones, although specialists warn that the chances of finding survivors decrease with each passing hour.
The double earthquake with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, regarded as the most devastating recorded in Venezuela since 1900, resulted in an official toll of 2,645 dead and 12,666 injured, as confirmed by interim president Delcy Rodríguez.
The UN estimates that up to 68,000 people remain missing, a figure significantly higher than the data reported by Nicolás Maduro's regime.
Parallel to this, at least 20 Cubans remain missing and eight have been confirmed deceased in the state of La Guaira, concentrated in Caraballeda, Catia La Mar, and Los Corales.
Fabio's father stands guard in front of the Taihiti building while authorities assess whether to continue or definitively suspend search operations at that site.
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