Venezuela has received offers of rescue teams and humanitarian aid from across the Americas, including from right-wing governments that had broken off diplomatic relations with Caracas less than two years ago, in the wake of this week’s deadly twin earthquakes.
The quakes, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 and 39 seconds apart, struck the north of the country on Wednesday evening and were the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century.
Interim President Delcy Rodriguez declared a nationwide state of emergency and named the coastal state of La Guaira a disaster zone.
On Friday, Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez said the death toll had risen to 589, with 2,980 injured.
Many people were believed to be trapped under rubble of toppled buildings.
Thousands have been reported missing.
International relations had been cut in the aftermath of Venezuela’s July 2024 presidential election, whose official result, which handed Nicolas Maduro a third term, was rejected by much of Latin America.
Caracas withdrew its diplomats from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay in a single day.
Paraguay broke off relations weeks later after President Santiago Pena backed the Venezuelan opposition, and Ecuador and El Salvador already had no ties with Caracas.
Several of those governments offered help within hours of the disaster.
Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said he had told his Venezuelan counterpart of Buenos Aires’ readiness to send humanitarian help, and the office of Argentina’s President Javier Milei said the leader was extending a hand “beyond the differences that may exist between our governments”.
Ecuador, which has no embassy in Caracas, ordered the immediate dispatch of aid, with right-wing President Daniel Noboa saying that “despite our enormous differences, humanity must always guide a leader’s actions”.
El Salvador, Chile and Panama all pledge to send aid
El Salvador expelled Venezuelan diplomats in 2019, but said on Thursday it had 300 rescuers and paramedics, along with 50 tonnes of equipment, ready to fly to Caracas, and the Dominican Republic said military search-and-rescue teams would follow.
Governed since March by the right-wing Jose Antonio Kast, Chile offered to coordinate the delivery of aid and rescue crews, while Panama, Costa Rica, Peru and Paraguay also pledged support.
The governments that Caracas has relied on for years moved in the same direction.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Cuban medical staff were already treating the injured, Bolivia said it stood ready to provide whatever was needed, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva confirmed he had received the news with “great concern and consternation” and ordered his foreign ministry to assess what Brazil could send.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government was preparing rescue and medical teams at Caracas’ request.
The earthquakes struck Venezuela with Maduro no longer in charge for the first time in more than a decade, a figure the region had spent years split over.
He was captured by US forces in January and brought to New York, where he is being held on narcoterrorism and drug-trafficking charges. From detention, Maduro issued a message calling for “maximum unity” while the day-to-day response fell to Rodriguez.
Relations with Washington have warmed since his capture, and American Airlines resumed commercial flights to Caracas on April 30 after a seven-year gap.
The US State Department pledged US$150 million, with US$100 million going to a United Nations humanitarian fund for Venezuela and US$50 million to aid groups in the country, along with military aircraft, search-and-rescue teams and a disaster-response unit.
Neighbouring governments coordinated their own aid directly with Caracas rather than through the US operation, keeping the channels they had reopened with a government that Washington now treats as a partner.
Colombia, whose president had restored relations with Maduro in 2022, was the slowest of those neighbours to respond.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro made no public comment for more than 13 hours as condolences arrived from across the region, an absence noted in the Colombian press.
When he did speak, Petro announced a team of more than 60 specialists, four canine units and 12 tonnes of equipment and wrote that “Colombia will always help Venezuela, and the other way round”.
He called on Trump to “lift the sanctions and blockade, so that Venezuelan society and the state have the fullest capacity to act”, and warned that a disaster of this scale, combined with economic restrictions, “will increase the number of dead”.
China ‘stands ready to help’
One of Caracas’ largest creditors and investors over the past two decades, Beijing said it stood ready to help “in suitable ways” in light of Venezuela’s need.
Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, told the press China believed that under the leadership of the Venezuelan government, its people would recover and rebuild soon. Its restraint left the United States as the largest single donor in a country China had spent years drawing into its orbit.
The US Geological Survey said the eventual toll could reach the tens of thousands, with economic losses of 1 per cent to 7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). A citizen-run platform set up to find the missing had logged more than 40,000 reports by Thursday, well above any official figure.
Aid workers cautioned that the recovery would be measured in years rather than weeks.
Ciaran Donnelly, a senior vice-president at the International Rescue Committee, said the rebuilding would require sustained financial and technical support, made harder by the limited public services and economic difficulties Venezuela faced before the ground had moved. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
