Over 160 people dead in Venezuela earthquakes

**Andrew Peach** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Andrew Peach and at 15 Hours GMT on Thursday the 25th of June. These are our main stories. In Venezuela, at least 164 people have died after two earthquakes, but experts say the number could rise into the thousands. The United States has promised a quick response. China, India and the EU have also pledged to help Venezuela. In Washington, Donald Trump locks horns with Republican senators over the war in Iran.
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First a huge rescue and recovery operations underway across northern Venezuela after two back-to-back earthquakes struck overnight. The tremors measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude hit the capital Caracas and several states at around six of the evening local time on Wednesday. It could be felt as far away as Bogotá in neighbouring Colombia. That's 1500 kilometres away.
164 people are known to have died. More than a thousand were injured. Those figures are expected to rise. Buildings remain without power. The metro system and the main international airport remain closed. Venezuela was celebrating a national holiday when the quake struck, meaning many people were at home at the time. Venezuela's acting president, Delcey Rodriguez, has declared a state of emergency. Here she is speaking to the nation during a televised address.

**Delcy Rodríguez** (1:45)
I want to inform that the state most affected by this earthquake is La Guerra State. There are dozens of collapsed buildings and we are at this moment working very hard in rescue operations to save the lives that God permits us to save. Also, I want to say that it is a true tragedy. From here, our message is of solidarity and to those families who have lost loved ones, we extend our condolences, our support during such difficult hours. We can say that La Guerra State is a true tragedy and has become a disaster zone.

**Andrew Peach** (2:18)
Luis Hernandez is a journalist in Caracas.

**Luis Hernandez** (2:21)
The movement was terribly horrifying and I got to tell you in the 48 years of life that I have, it's the first time that I felt such a strong movement in the apartment. Everything was shaking. There was no safe place to be inside the apartment. So I grabbed my dog and I went downstairs as quickly as I could.
Where I am right now, it's a place called Miravilla, which is located almost 20 minutes from Caracas. But in Caracas, there are a lot of buildings that fell down completely. People that are buried in the structures and the government is trying to get them out as soon as they can. But due to the whole difficulties that we have with the crisis, that is the economic crisis that is going on in the country right now, it's very difficult for us to assess the damage.

**Andrew Peach** (3:20)
Several countries, including the US, China and India, have offered help. Here's the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

**Marco Rubio** (3:27)
The Department of War is going to have to play a logistical, a big logistical role here because they have the ability to land in challenging places. Right now, the airport in Caracas is damaged. One of the runways is cracked. And so, but the Department of War has the capability to land in situations like that, so we'll need that. So we have an awful whole of government response. It'll be big, it'll be fast, and it'll be effective.

**Andrew Peach** (3:49)
Vanessa Buschluta is the Latin America editor for the BBC News website. She gave me a bit more about the scale of the damage.

**Vanessa Buschlueta** (3:57)
What we're seeing is a lot of social media footage of destroyed buildings, of people in anguish looking for their relatives. As you were saying there in your introduction, Andrew, the sun has now come up over Caracas and the environments like La Guaida, the hardest hit area, and it seems of devastation. It's rubble strewn everywhere, buildings just collapsed into dust really. And I think the death toll will keep rising as the emergency workers search in those buildings for any survivors, but of course there will also be many who will not have been able to survive the collapse of such high-rise buildings.

**Andrew Peach** (4:43)
This is the worst earthquake in Venezuela since 1900 That would suggest that the buildings and whatever won't be designed to withstand this kind of thing because it's not something that happens.