THE NEW YORK TIMES: Death toll expected to rise after Venezuela hit by two major earthquakes

Two major earthquakes struck central Venezuela on Wednesday evening, causing buildings to collapse in the capital and people to swarm into the streets. The stronger quake was the largest to hit the country since 1900.

Neither the scale of the damage nor its human toll was immediately clear, but given the earthquakes’ power and the large number of vulnerable buildings in the stricken region, fears of a widespread disaster were high.

A few hours after quakes struck, Delcy Rodríguez, the country’s President since US forces deposed former President Nicolás Maduro, said she would soon “address the Venezuelan people”.

The first earthquake hit just after 10pm with a magnitude of 7.2 and was followed less than a minute later by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake, according to US monitoring agencies.

The epicentre was near San Felipe, a city of about 220,000 in the state of Yaracuy, about 320km west of Caracas.

The US Geological Survey released a preliminary analysis that described a “severe seismic doublet sequence.”

The earthquakes are the latest blow to a country that has experienced exceptional political and economic turmoil in recent years.

In January, US forces deposed and captured Mr Maduro, the former leader who oversaw an economic collapse and efforts to consolidate authoritarian rule during this time in office.

Since then, the Trump administration has seized control over Venezuela’s oil industry, turning the country into something resembling a vassal state.

The USGS said that many people in the affected area reside in structures made of unreinforced brick masonry and adobe block construction, which are vulnerable to earthquakes.

Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, went on state television to urge people to vacate damaged buildings.

“Subsequent aftershocks will exploit those structural weaknesses,” he warned.

Josefina Hernández, 48, an administrator in Valencia, west of Caracas, said she heard a deafening noise.

“The electricity went out immediately, she said, and everything inside her home started moving.

“You tried to run, and you couldn’t.

“People were frantic, screaming — I mean, it was terrifying, because people were just pouring out, saying, ‘What is this?’”

In the Caracas neighbourhood of El Paraíso, emergency responders searched the remains of a six-story residential building for survivors as dozens of anxious relatives gathered behind police tape.

Members of the country’s national guard, police and civil protection forces clambered over the collapsed building, shouting out the names of missing residents and ordering onlookers to stay silent “so that the trapped people can hear us”.

Rescuers successfully pulled out a young girl and a dog.

Videos on social media showed passengers running for safety inside the international airport in Maiquetía, near Caracas. Other images showed rescue teams combing through collapsed structures in Caracas searching for survivors.

Venezuela’s government said on state television that a “strong earthquake” was felt in Caracas and several parts of the country, but that the extent of the damage was not immediately clear.

Venezuelan authorities did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.

Although the quakes struck on land, the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center briefly issued tsunami warnings along the coasts of Venezuela, Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba.

A 5.6 magnitude quake hit Northern California about seven hours before those that hit Venezuela, and a 6.9 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Japan half an hour afterwards.

Neither was reported to have caused any widespread damage. Experts said there was no indication that the earthquakes were related.

Wednesday’s quakes quickly drew comparisons among Venezuelans to a 1967 earthquake that wreaked havoc in the capital and left more than 200 people dead.