A three-year-old boy has been pulled alive from the rubble six days after devastating twin earthquakes struck Venezuela, as the UN warned that tens of thousands of people were urgently in need of food and shelter.
Video footage released by Jordanian rescuers showed them cheering as Klieber Morán was extracted from wreckage in Los Corales Garden 1 building in La Guaira state. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez described the rescue as a “source of hope for our people”. The child was taken to a hospital in Caracas, where his vital signs were good, according to the Jordanian civil defence.
“Three-year-old Klieber Morán rescued alive six days after Venezuela earthquakes; UN warns of humanitarian crisis.”
The boy’s age was disputed: Rodríguez said three, but National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez, who also confirmed the rescue, said he was two. “We must hold on to the hope of continuing to find people alive beneath the rubble,” Jorge Rodríguez said in a televised address.
The rescue came well after the initial three-day period when experts say trapped people have the best chance of survival. Klieber was the only reported survivor found on the sixth day of ongoing search efforts, authorities said.
Last Wednesday, Venezuela was hit by two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 less than a minute apart. The death toll has risen to 1,943, with more than 10,000 people injured and tens of thousands more unaccounted for. Nasa’s initial satellite assessment estimated nearly 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
La Guaira is one of the hardest-hit areas. The UN refugee agency said food shortages were widespread, basic services had broken down, and communications were largely severed. “Community tensions are rising as access to assistance remains constrained,” the UNHCR said. Daniela Armas, an 18-year-old vendor in La Guaira who was injured when she fell from a motorbike during the quakes, told AFP that supplies were being distributed “but sometimes people nearly kill each other for food… it’s like a cockfight.”
The UNHCR said it needed an initial $15m to scale up protection and shelter for 30,000 people over six months. Unicef flew in 47 metric tons of humanitarian supplies, including emergency health kits for safe births, newborn care and disease prevention. The World Health Organization warned of an increased risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria due to low vaccination coverage. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said health services were under “extreme pressure”.
Unicef said 680,000 children nationwide are in need of humanitarian assistance. Experts say the official death toll is likely a significant undercount as more bodies are hauled from the rubble every day and morgues struggle to cope.