More than 5,000 dead, in addition to 16,000 injured and an undetermined number of missing; That is the balance of the double earthquake that shook Venezuela on June 24. A month after the tragedy, thousands of people continue searching for their relatives in the middle of the ruins, while the Government, international agencies and NGOs analyze the challenges of costly reconstruction in a country full of deficiencies.

First modification: 07/23/2026 - 22:54 Last modification: 08/04/2026 - 00:00

This July 24 marks one month since the double earthquake that shook Venezuela and, according to authorities, left more than 5,300 dead; However, citizen groups and NGOs affirm that there are thousands of people still under the rubble and whose lives are already considered lost.

The president of the National Assembly (AN, Parliament), Jorge Rodríguez, reported, for his part, that the earthquakes, of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, which mainly affected the coastal state of La Guaira, near Caracas, also left 16,740 people injured.

Meanwhile, rescue teams maintain operations to find the bodies found in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Shelters installed in stadiums, squares and other green spaces shelter at least 23,000 people who were left without housing, although many of them experience difficulties in accessing basic services, such as drinking water and bathrooms.

The disaster has taken place in a nation rich in oil, gas and minerals, but which has struggled for years with widespread poverty due to questionable economic management and intense pressure from the United States.

Read alsoVenezuela after the earthquake: how to rebuild a country in crisis?

Concern over the number of missing people

The Government of Venezuela has not reported an official number of missing people, but the Venezuela Reporta site puts the total at 41,300, while other sources consider lower or higher numbers. The uncertainty is latent.

According to Jorge Cattaneo, global director of the NGO Ayuda en Acción, “there is talk of 40,000, 50,000, 70,000” missing, but he clarifies that “it is not that information is being hidden.” In any case, it points to the difficulties that exist in the databases because in many cases the disappearance was reported twice. “When it comes to missing people and on such a large and serious scale, it is not easy,” he explains.

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Even with its variations, this figure surprises Cattaneo:

“Being used to emergencies around the world, we are not used to this volume of missing people,” he maintains.

From his experience, in other cases the “speed of debris removal” from buildings is very high. Another large earthquake, the one in Turkey, reported an approximate number of 50,000 deaths, but the number of missing people dropped rapidly because the removal of the remains of collapsed buildings was almost immediate.

In the case of Venezuela, the lack of means prevents acting in a similar way. This leads to a second reason that also increases the number of people searched: due to the inability to clear debris, for health reasons, many bodies have to be buried without being identified. The effect of this situation is that this figure remains high over time because their deaths cannot be confirmed.

The double earthquake in a very short time frame also explains this high figure. In this sense, the construction model of the most affected area impacts the way buildings collapse and causes complex burial for rescue and identification operations.

The global director of Ayuda en Acción also considers “a certain level of political isolation” of Venezuela and lack of presence of international actors.

Read alsoDeaths from earthquakes in Venezuela increase to 5,398

Rapid fall from public attention

Another aspect that worries humanitarian organizations is the speed with which the catastrophe leaves the center of the scene. “At Ayuda en Acción we talk a lot about when the lights go off,” Cattaneo highlights.

This concern is repeated in other cases. The director of the organization says that for years they have seen a rapid decline in public attention and presence in the media, beyond the situation in Venezuela.

"Once the first five or six days of an emergency pass, public attention decreases a lot. It also happened in Dana in Spain," he reflects, adding that in this case they are surprised by "how the attention of public opinion has decreased in Spain, in some other countries in the region and on the international scene."

On the international agenda, there is strong competition with the double earthquake in Venezuela in terms of newsworthiness. The war in the Middle East and the dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the actions against migrants by the Republican government in the United States and the resumption of the tariff war by the White House also occupy the headlines of international networks.

Despite this situation, Cattaneo insists that "it is an emergency of sufficient magnitude to remain in public opinion and media attention. There are many weeks ahead, not only of stabilization, but of reconstruction. There are many missing people and it draws our attention."

Displaced and dispersed: the survivors of Venezuela

The distribution of humanitarian aid for families who lost their homes is another of the great challenges. According to the official report of the Government of Venezuela, as of July 22, there are 128,324 families assisted, 107 temporary camps, 23,335 people in these camps, 856 buildings affected and 190 collapsed.

Some people remain at the foot of where their building was located, in areas with little access, with difficulties for the arrival of humanitarian aid. For this reason, organizations like Ayuda en Acción locate their work there. In this framework, dispersion stands as an obstacle to the identification of people and distribution of food. “You have 100 families here, 200 families there, 300 families there,” Cattaneo says.

Read also"We are not going to abandon them under the ruins": a month later, Venezuela continues to unearth its dead

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of July 22, there were 41 camps established in Caracas, 28 in La Guaira, 28 in Miranda and 10 in Aragua. Of the total population housed, 12,123 people are in La Guaira, 8,704 in Caracas, 1,833 in Miranda and 675 in Aragua. These are citizens displaced from their usual neighborhoods, a situation that entails difficulties for their families to find them.

The director of Ayuda en Acción adds that many of the service supply chains that were based on the market are greatly affected by the earthquake itself. This adds difficulty to a challenge that is already high in the case of water distribution, in a population accustomed to buying in jugs in the private sector.

This supply chain encounters various limitations. “Looking for solutions that respond more to the local logic of how these services have been provided is also going to be a challenge,” adds Cattaneo.

The challenge of reconstruction

When one month has passed since the earthquakes in Venezuela, the end of the first emergency response stage begins and another stage of developing diagnoses begins to identify potential structural solutions to the challenges that the population has, mainly related to water and sanitation issues.

The World Bank estimates that the devastating earthquakes caused about $19.5 billion in direct physical damage and suggested a public-private partnership to tackle reconstruction. The states of La Guaira and the Capital District were the most impacted, with 47% of the total damage detected, followed by Miranda and Carabobo.

Cattaneo explains that now it is a stabilization stage, "because it is not even reconstruction, since many of the solutions that are going to be put in place are going to be temporary to overcome this logic of distribution of food or water and health kits."

The current week and the next will be critical at the level of coordination between OCHA and humanitarian response actors to establish this type of actions and try to adapt them to the circulation and consumption logic of the Venezuelan population.

The next phase will be linked to the reconstruction process. A first approach will be linked to the situation of public infrastructure related to water and sanitation systems, which are completely destroyed. This will be the basis to later move forward with the creation of new homes.

Read alsoVenezuela: international doctors contain diseases in shelters

For Cattaneo, one of the concerns is that the shelters where families are currently staying become permanent. He considers that intermediate solutions are needed, such as those applied in Ukraine, where families in the diaspora give up their homes through institutions that function as mediators.

The continuity of the educational process is another concern that appears on the horizon. Finding answers for schools that have less serious damage or relocating students to schools seems to be the quickest way to do it. It's not easy, says Cattaneo.

In Valencia, when the Dana occurred, there was controversy because it involved changing shifts and moving kids to other areas.

Finally, the global director of Ayuda en Acción focuses on the importance of the diagnosis: "Now we are entering a new stage in which the diagnosis is very important to find the best possible solutions, taking into account that it will take, or we will have to depend on, those solutions for probably many months, until that construction arrives."

Read alsoThe WB estimates that the Venezuela earthquakes caused about 19.5 billion dollars in damage

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