Twin earthquakes strike Venezuela

**Chris Burrow** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Chris Burrow, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 25th of June, these are our main stories. A state of emergency has been declared in Venezuela after two major earthquakes struck seconds apart, causing fatalities and extensive damage. Celebrations have officially begun in Washington to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. And a major drugs trial to help fight the latest Ebola outbreak is about to get under way.
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A state of emergency has been declared in Venezuela after two major earthquakes struck Venezuela seconds apart. The epicentre was close to the capital, Caracas. It's understood there have been fatalities and extensive damage. This resident said her home had been left in ruins.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:07)
All the walls were cracked. We managed to open the door, but there was a cloud of smoke, so we couldn't see much. When we went downstairs, it was like a scene from a horror movie.
I only saw the building superintendent with a baby, and one family from that building get out.

**Chris Burrow** (1:24)
Our reporter Vanessa Silva spoke to us from the streets of Caracas.

**Vanessa Silva** (1:27)
A lot of buildings are without power or electricity after the earthquake that hit the north of Venezuela around 6 in the afternoon today. A lot of people are trying to look how to go back to their homes. The metro system is completely closed, all the stations. So it was just at the time that people were getting all the works before. Even that today is a holiday. All the structure shakes very strong in the capital, in my home. I can see how many things fell down and broken in my building. One of my neighborhood, she fell down and broke her arms. I don't know at this moment how many victims are. But we can see videos coming from social media, from infrastructure collapses in the city.

**Chris Burrow** (2:17)
America's correspondent Will Grant is following developments.

**Will Grant** (2:21)
The Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, has been on state television and said that there are collapsed buildings in Caracas. So we're trying to find out exactly how many and whether or not people are trapped inside. Of course, we've seen images of emergency services on the scenes there. A tsunami warning has now been lifted. It was triggered for parts of the Caribbean, Aruba and Bonaire, and obviously for Venezuela itself. The tremors were felt as far as way as the Colombian capital, Bogotá.
And it does seem that many thousands of residents of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, remain outside their homes. Their buildings may have been cracked or they may simply be too scared, fearful of aftershocks, to go back inside their apartments at this stage.

**Chris Burrow** (3:05)
How well prepared is Venezuela for seismic activity? Because it's not the first time.

**Will Grant** (3:10)
It's far from the first time. There's a combination, really, of parts of a place like Caracas that are very well prepared, with modern buildings sort of well resistant for earthquakes and built up to code. And obviously whole swathes of the city that are very informally built, creeping up the hillsides of the Avala National Park, the well-known shantytowns, the barrios, where homes are made of bricks. And there's plenty of parts of the city that are very vulnerable to earthquakes. It's just a question at this stage of working out how much of those have been affected.

**Chris Burrow** (3:42)
And is the emergency service response quite good in these kinds of situations there? Is the access good?

**Will Grant** (3:50)
Again, it's relative. I mean, the economic crisis in Venezuela over recent years has meant everything has been stretched to breaking point.
Ambulance services, fire services, all these sorts of things are not what they once were, as the sort of oil money ran out during the Maduro regime. Things, I think, have been improving a little in recent years in terms of the economy, and they're certainly well trained. They are very, very experienced in that regard. So I think there is good personnel on the ground, and then it's just a question of whether or not they've been dispatched to the right parts of town.

**Chris Burrow** (4:22)
Well, Grant, now to Washington, where celebrations for the United States' 250th birthday have officially begun.
The 4th of July this year marks two and a half centuries since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 Donald Trump opened the Great American State Fair in Washington, an exposition across the capital, which will celebrate various aspects of American culture and history.