Emergency crews and residents scrambled to save survivors trapped beneath collapsed buildings in Venezuela Thursday after two powerful earthquakes killed at least 164 people and caused widespread devastation.
Buildings cracked and crumbled and residents fled into the streets after the quakes, which the United States Geological Survey measured as magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, hit northern Venezuela within a minute of each other.
Offers of rescue support and aid flooded in from around the world as interim president Delcy Rodriguez reported at least 164 dead and over 970 hurt.
The state of La Guaira, north of Caracas, was hit particularly hard, and residents stumbled through debris calling out the names of loved ones or tried in vain to rescue the injured.
"There's a spot where a young woman named Jennifer, from the 11th floor, answers me. However, we don't have any tools; we have no way to help," said Antonio Bermudez, whose building collapsed in La Guaira.
Elsewhere in the rubble, a father and his son were using a pickaxe and a crowbar to try and pry away massive slabs to get to two of his other sons, said Bermudez.
"They're still alive ... there's nothing more we can do. We're telling them not to strain their voices, to take short breaths, in the hope that at least the three of them who are there will be rescued."
The coastal city was without electricity, and many residents spent the night in the streets or searching for their relatives, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters.
The strongest quake to hit Venezuela in 126 years will require "massive collective efforts," the United Nation's aid chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement. He said the U.N. was "fully mobilized" to send aid.
Threatening to complicate relief efforts, the international airport near Caracas was closed due to "serious damage," Rodriguez said.
Venezuela's northern coast sits on a boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates. In 1812, a massive quake in the country killed an estimated 30,000 people.
Wednesday's 7.5-magnitude earthquake was the most powerful since Oct. 29, 1900, when a 7.7-magnitude tremor struck offshore.
The quake was felt as far away as the Colombian capital of Bogota, where alarms sounded and some residents evacuated buildings as a precaution.
Freddy Tovar, coordinator of Colombia's National Seismological Network, said authorities had received more than 200 reports of tremors nationwide.
Tremors were also reported in several cities in northern Brazil, according to the country's seismic monitoring network.
Scores of rescuers were deploying from the United States and several European countries, Rodriguez said.
Other nations, including Mexico, Chile, Portugal, China, India, Brazil, and even war-battered Iran, offered help, such as rescue teams.
"We have a whole-of-government response. It'll be big, it'll be fast, and it'll be effective," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a visit to Bahrain, saying his country's military would play a "big logistical role."
Washington is closely involved in oil-rich Venezuela after U.S. forces ousted and arrested President Nicolas Maduro in January.
Many residential buildings in La Guaira – around 40 minutes from the capital Caracas – were left with large cracks or gaping walls. Dozens of others were destroyed.
"We thank God that ... we are alive, but people are suffering right now with family members trapped under the rubble or pinned down, unable to get them out," resident Yilsmaris Blanco told AFP.
"There are people alive in there, there are dead people," Paola Sanoja, 31, told AFP, pointing to a building left tilted with its apartments exposed, where one of her relatives was missing.
"We need help to come."
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello asked people to leave their homes, adding that gas supplies had been cut to some buildings as a precaution.
In Caracas, the quakes sent residents fleeing into the streets. Shoppers at a mall in the city screamed in panic.
"It was unbelievable, I don't even know how long it lasted," said shopkeeper Heidi Romero.
The strongest tremors in earthquake-prone Venezuela's recent history occurred in the northeast in 1997, killing 73 people, and in Caracas in 1967, when 236 people died.
