Venezuela races to find earthquake survivors

**Pete Ross** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.
I'm Pete Ross and in the early hours of Sunday, the 28th of June, these are our main stories. More than 1,400 people are now confirmed dead following twin earthquakes in Venezuela. As public frustration at the government's response grows. The US military says it struck military sites in Iran in response to a drone attack on an oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has retaliated with strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain. And tens of thousands take part in a pride march in Budapest. The first since the end of Viktor Orbán's government.
Also in this podcast, as a record-breaking heat wave continues to grip Europe, ice in the Swiss Alps is melting at an unprecedented rate.

**Matthias Huss** (0:51)
We're losing as much water from the Swiss glaciers. To fill up one Olympic swimming pool every six seconds.

**Pete Ross** (0:59)
And... Thousands of scooters travel through the streets of Rome in a parade to celebrate 80 years since the invention of one of Italy's best known exports, the Vespa.
As Venezuela enters the fourth day since the two earthquakes that have devastated the country, a crucial window of opportunity to find survivors is closing. Humanitarian aid agencies say the first 72 hours after a disaster of this kind are key to rescuing people alive. More than 1,400 people are now known to have died, but the true figure is thought to be higher. Tens of thousands are still missing, and first responders warn that with every hour that passes, survivability reduces.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:52)
We are here in Chacao, Miranda state, working non-stop since last night, and have recovered the body of a woman with her dog in her arms. The dog came out alive, but the woman unfortunately died.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:05)
They say there are people who are still alive, but it seems there's not enough machinery and equipment to clear all this rubble. I ask, please, to send people who are capable of helping us and that they don't stop searching, because we still hope our loved ones come out alive.

**Pete Ross** (2:20)
The coastal state of La Guaira was one of the area's hardest hit, and there's been growing frustration at the pace of the government response there. Families and volunteers have spent days pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble as they wait for specialist equipment to arrive.
The Venezuelan authorities were not prepared for a disaster of this scale, as we heard from our senior international correspondent, Earl O'Garen, in the capital, Caracas.

**Earl O'Garen** (2:45)
This country has been running on empty for years.
Under the control of President Nicolas Maduro, the economy was basically run into the ground through mismanagement, through corruption.
People have suffered years of hyperinflation. One young Venezuelan here has just said to me, a monthly salary would not buy you one packet of medication. So if this was a test for the Venezuelan state, it's a test it could only fail.
Where we are standing now, there is a big operation going on still, but this is to try to recover bodies, not to find the living. Hope of that is gone at this particular place. Now about seven bodies have been taken out so far today. We saw one of those being recovered about an hour ago. It was a very moving moment. The body was found, it was lifted gently from the rubble, it was covered very carefully and placed on a stretcher and carried away by rescue workers with as much dignity as they could provide in a situation like this.

**Pete Ross** (3:49)
Or Ligeren. Also in Caracas is our reporter Vanessa Silva. Earlier she visited a hospital in the capital.

**Vanessa Silva** (3:56)
We saw people in the hospital looking for the loved ones as missing people, grabbing hope that they can be found alive. In the hospitals, you can see picture of people missing. You can see a list of names of the people injured that were taken to these places.
I spoke with a man that were looking for a 14-years-old boy, and they say they create like a team in the family going to different points to try to figure out if they found him. But when he was there, they receive a call telling them that there is a huge possibility that they found the body but the conditions of the body that they couldn't recognize at the moment. So they say, well, maybe it's him, but maybe we still have a chance to find him alive. Another man were looking for a cousin of his wife. He says that he came from Miami the same day on the airway, and they were driving to a hotel in La Huayra State, and these airquakes happened, and they were trapped there. But in this case, his relative was missing.