A security guard has been pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed car park in Venezuela – eight days after twin earthquakes killed more than 2,300 people and left tens of thousands missing.
Emergency workers freed Hernán Gil after spending more than 100 hours inching towards him under 140 tonnes of debris. A Chilean firefighter involved described the operation as “without doubt the most complex and technically difficult which I’ve had to tackle”.
“A security guard and a two-year-old boy have been pulled alive from rubble eight days after deadly earthquakes in Venezuela.”
Gil had been on duty in a small concrete booth in the basement of the parking lot adjacent to the Galerias Playa Grande mall in Catia La Mar when the quakes struck on 24 June. The booth created a shell around him, protecting him from the weight collapsing above. “He has told us that he does not even have a crushed nail,” a Costa Rican Red Cross worker said shortly before Gil was freed.
The rescue began after paramedic Allan Madrigal of the Costa Rican Red Cross heard Gil’s faint cries for help. “It was an emotional moment,” Madrigal recalled. He said he at first did not trust his own ears and asked a colleague to confirm he “wasn’t just imagining it”.
Teams from Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Mexico, Portugal and the United States worked together, passing Gil water and attaching an intravenous drip while they dug. Parts of the access ducts collapsed several times, underscoring the danger to rescuers. A camera inserted into the rubble showed Gil with a bloodshot eye, wearing a face mask passed to him earlier to protect against dust. A Chilean firefighter asked him to turn his head and don goggles.
Gil eventually emerged “just perfect”, Madrigal told journalists.
The rescue came as another survival story gave the nation hope. Two-year-old Kleiber Moran was pulled from the rubble of his home in La Guaira state six days after the quakes, by Jordanian rescuers. Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez called the rescue a “source of hope for our people”.
The boy’s aunt, Andreína Sarmiento, 23, told the BBC she would “take care of Kleiber with a mother’s warmth until my sister appears, which is what we long for”. When a friend phoned to tell her Kleiber had been rescued, she fell to the floor and screamed and wept. She said rescuers from the UK had also tried to reach him before the Jordanian team succeeded.
Kleiber was in a “state of shock, screaming and screaming” when he arrived at hospital, but by Wednesday “he had stabilised”. He had no fractures, only scratches. His parents, Ana Luz and Carlos, remain missing. “It hurts because I can’t find my sister,” Andreína said, as Kleiber lay beside her in a Spiderman blanket, pushing a toy car around the bed.