LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — A father and his son have been pulled from the ruins of a collapsed building, surviving four days beneath the rubble left behind by Venezuela’s deadly earthquakes.
The dramatic rescue unfolded Sunday in La Guaira, offering a rare moment of hope for the French and American rescue crews working around the clock to find more survivors before time runs out.
Rescue workers carried both men through debris-covered streets on makeshift fabric stretchers, visibly exhausted and wearing masks, toward a waiting ambulance as onlookers gathered near the emergency vehicles.
La Guaira, a coastal state, was the hardest-hit area when the earthquakes struck on Wednesday, leaving at least 1,450 people dead and thousands more unaccounted for.
The rescue took approximately 12 hours of careful, painstaking work. Teams used specialized search cameras to comb through the unstable wreckage before safely reaching the two survivors.
“They are extremely weak, as any patient trapped under rubble for four days would be, so we are doing everything possible to rehydrate them and administer various medications during the extraction process, which is moving very slowly,” said a member of the French Civil Security.
The rescue operation in that area involved members of the French Civil Security alongside American responders from the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team in Virginia. That same team had rescued a mother and her 9-month-old baby just the day before.
Prior to removing the father and son from the rubble, rescuers set up intravenous drips and cleared surrounding debris. Other team members stayed close to the wreckage, searching for additional signs of life and staying in communication with colleagues working through the remains.
At least 33 people were rescued over the course of the weekend. However, tens of thousands are still reported missing, raising growing concerns that the window for finding survivors alive is closing fast.
Specialists warn that after 72 hours following an earthquake, the chances of locating victims alive under rubble drop sharply.
