A 43-year-old security guard has been rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Venezuela, eight days after two devastating earthquakes struck the country, in what rescuers and relatives described as a miracle.
According to AFP, Hernan Gil was pulled from the ruins of a seven-storey building in Catia La Mar on Thursday after an intensive three-day rescue operation involving teams from Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico.
Gil, who had been trapped since the powerful earthquakes on June 24, was kept alive with more than 10 litres of water delivered through a hose while rescuers also supplied oxygen through a tube.
His wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, described the rescue as extraordinary.
“This is truly a miracle,” she told AFP.
Rescuers worked carefully to reach him, with around 30 people clearing debris while two specialists dug a three-metre tunnel to his location.
Cristian Vera, leader of the Chilean rescue team, said reaching the trapped man was extremely difficult.
“It wasn’t easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,” he said.
Gil’s rescue has offered a rare moment of hope as the official death toll climbed to 2,295, with more than 11,000 people injured and nearly 13,000 left homeless.
Authorities say tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for following the twin earthquakes, which measured 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude and devastated large parts of the country.
NASA estimates that nearly 60,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
While a three-year-old boy was also rescued alive earlier this week, emergency workers say hopes of finding more survivors are fading.
Mexican firefighter Cesar Gonzalez, who works with search-and-rescue dogs Zeus and Bom, said the mission has largely shifted from saving lives to recovering victims.
“One is for detecting the living, the other for cadavers. Just two days ago, there was much more hope. Now, it would take a miracle to find anyone alive,” he said.
The humanitarian crisis is also deepening as thousands remain without shelter, food or clean water.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has appealed for $50 million to provide food assistance for about 500,000 people over the next three months.
Among those displaced is Maria Arteaga, a 33-year-old mother of four, who is sheltering under tarpaulins on a football field.
“We lost everything, except our lives. We’re even barefoot,” she told AFP.
Police and military personnel have been deployed to prevent looting as aid queues continue to grow across the worst-affected communities.
