Venezuela: man found alive days after earthquakes

**Will Chalk** (0:00)
This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Will Chalk, and in the early hours of Friday, the third of July, these are our main stories. There are more incredible tales of rescue following the earthquakes in Venezuela, but time is surely nearly up for those who remain trapped under collapsed buildings. We'll get the latest from our correspondent in Caracas. Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are fighting to contain the rapid spread of the Ebola outbreak, also in this podcast.

**Brian Boland** (0:34)
For those decisions, it's hard to say exactly who's responsible, but you don't get major decisions without the most senior people and knowing about it.

**Will Chalk** (0:42)
A BBC investigation discovers the tech giant Meta is running paid adverts on Instagram in India, promoting child sex abuse material.
Rescue efforts are ongoing in Venezuela, nine days after the deadly earthquakes that rocked the country. The interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, says the number of people known to have died has reached almost 2,600.
As rescue workers reach more and more devastated areas, there are stark contrasts in the stories that have emerged. On the one hand, relatives forced to dig with their bare hands, trying to free their loved ones, but getting there too late. And on the other hand, stories of complex international rescue operations and remarkable survival. Like earlier, in Katia Lamar, as a man was pulled alive from the ruins of a collapsed seven-story building. Our international correspondent, Yagita Lamaie, was there as the man, Hernán Gil, a 43-year-old security guard, was freed.

**Yagita Lamaie** (1:40)
There it is. I'm watching the moment as this man who has been under the rubble. It's now day nine. It's day nine. And this man has been pulled out successfully. It's taken a mammoth, mammoth rescue effort. People are trying to stay quiet here. There's a lot of joy in the air, but they're trying to stay quiet here because this is a man who has been underground, who was in this cramped position for days and days, didn't know whether he was going to survive. And now, wow, he has been pulled out.
So what I can see in front of me is that he's been brought out on a stretcher and now he is being put into an ambulance. They're doing it very slowly, very carefully. They put him on a saline drip and there's somebody who's holding that up next to him.

**Will Chalk** (2:32)
That was the moment of the rescue. As for the rescue itself, Manny Sampang is from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and is part of the international team that worked for days to reach the man.

**Manny Sampang** (2:43)
The place that he was located, he was a parking attendant, security guard in a subterranean parking complex, approximately two stories below grade. The structure above him was a residential apartment complex, which had collapsed directly above his location. The debris pile was basically on top of his location and being suspended by the debris itself. So it was a very slow, methodical process in order to remove the debris enough where we can access them without having any further collapse on top of us and on top of him. In all honesty, it is likely a miracle for him to survive in the debris pile that he was in, as well as to be successfully extricated from it. It was a huge effort by all the international teams that are here in the operational area. It was a great success.

**Will Chalk** (3:37)
Our correspondent Vanessa Silva, who is in Caracas, gave me more details about the rescue.

**Vanessa Silva** (3:42)
It's really a miracle what we've seen in La Huayra state with this rescue moment. I was able to speak with the head of the Chilean Fire Department, the medical team, Vicenzo Borna, and he will explain to me how after five days of the earthquake, they reached this security guard and they were able to feed them through a channel, through a soup. They provided 11 liters of water and isotonic drinks in 72 hours. But that helps that Hernán were able to move by himself through the tunnel to the stretch at the moment of their rescue.
And the doctor says that he is quite sure that he will recuperate very soon of this episode, at least in the medical conditions.

**Will Chalk** (4:37)
But there is a huge contrast, isn't there? Because we hear about these huge international rescue efforts, but then also, as I said, families digging with their bare hands. So how exactly is the help being distributed?

**Vanessa Silva** (4:49)
The level of devastation in that area is just hard to explain, hard to describe the magnitude of what happened there in that town. And no matter the amount of help that arrives, it's so many buildings, so many rubble to remove, to find people are alive or dead, that there is not enough hands. So at the very beginning was just the relatives that survived or arrived into these buildings, finding for their loved ones, the ones who try to remove the rubble and help them. And this is still going on because there is not enough machinery. Well, the help is there and everyone is trying to help as much as they can.