LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — Rosa López kept her voice low as she described walking past rows of bodies baking under the hot sun while helping her daughter search for her missing son-in-law. Despite her years of experience as a nurse, nothing could have readied her for the sight of dozens of victims wrapped in sheets and blankets.
“We saw a lot of bodies that had not yet been identified,” López said.
Across La Guaira — the Venezuelan coastal state that bore the brunt of the two powerful earthquakes on June 24 — families are in a desperate race to locate and identify their loved ones before time runs out. With a death toll of at least 2,295, Venezuelan authorities are struggling to collect, identify, and preserve the growing number of victims. Thousands of people remain missing.
López’s 25-year-old son-in-law, José Antonio Toledo, was found beneath the building where he had been working as a security guard when the quakes hit. Emergency crews brought his body to a nearby hospital, but staff turned them away due to a lack of space. His remains were then transported to another facility and eventually moved to an open parking lot.
A forensic doctor helped the family locate him several days later, on Saturday. After identifying his body, the family faced another obstacle — they could not afford the $450 fee a funeral home was charging.
Late Saturday night, López received word that the mayor’s office was offering a free burial plot at a local cemetery, but the family had to act fast to secure the spot. Within an hour, López and her daughter made their way up a hillside to the cemetery and laid Toledo to rest.
“He was an exemplary person, a boy who liked helping people,” López said.
Their swift action spared him from a mass grave — a fate that many grieving families fear as the search for victims continues.
Forensic technician Joel Mirabal has been working without a day off since the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes struck seven days ago.
The 45-year-old estimates that in roughly 60% to 70% of cases, a family member or neighbor is present to help identify a body when he arrives. Even then, the process is difficult, with many identifications relying on tattoos, scars, or recognizable clothing.
“They don’t look even 10% like what they were in real life,” he said of the victims.
Bodies that cannot be identified are taken to forensic specialists working out of La Guaira’s seaport. Private companies have donated large refrigerated containers to help preserve the remains, but the number of dead continues to climb.
“Obviously, mass graves will have to be created,” Mirabal said. “The collapse is massive, and the bodies are buried under many layers of debris.”
Mirabal and his fellow forensic technicians expect the body recovery effort to stretch as long as three months. Each day, they travel through the affected areas guided by rescue workers and civilians who have found or spotted remains.
“Many of the rescues are carried out by the people,” he said, referring to the thousands of everyday Venezuelans who have joined the recovery effort.
A professional dog trainer who once worked with the government to locate drugs and missing persons, Mirabal finds comfort in the 12 dogs waiting for him at home — not counting the puppies. One of his favorites is Mila, a young black Dutch Shepherd who rested beside him on Thursday.
“It’s not easy at all to witness the suffering and tragedy of your fellow human beings,” he said.
Over the weekend, crews transported dozens of bodies recovered from collapsed buildings to a government-operated health facility in the city of La Guaira. The remains were held in a scorching parking lot until families could claim them, with funeral home workers estimating that more than 200 bodies were stored there at one point.
By Thursday, grieving families were lined up outside the La Guaira seaport, waiting to identify bodies that authorities were continuing to recover throughout the coastal state. A long line of vehicles — including trucks and vans from funeral homes — formed outside a makeshift morgue at the facility.
Among those waiting was Robert Rodríguez, who sat slumped on a concrete block, his legs hanging, as his daughter went inside to identify the body of her husband. Rafael Alvarado had been killed while trapped inside a grocery store where he worked at the deli counter.
“He was her best friend,” Rodríguez said, tears soaking his blue face mask.
Rodríguez said the family found Alvarado in the rubble on Wednesday, and his body was transported to the seaport on Thursday.
“I saw his shoes and knew it was him,” Rodríguez said, adding that he had tried to prepare his daughter for what she would see. “I told her, ‘Prepare yourself.’”
The family plans to cremate Alvarado and scatter his ashes on Isla de Margarita, the Venezuelan island where he had called home.
