The United States has stepped up its response to the earthquake disaster in Venezuela from a pledge of help to a full military and humanitarian deployment. According to the report, the Pentagon is now moving assets and personnel into the country, sending two Navy ships and two planes to provide assistance, while a Marine general has been tasked with leading the American relief efforts on the ground as the scale of the catastrophe becomes clearer.
What is driving that response is a death toll and a list of the missing that keep growing. Hundreds of people have already been confirmed dead and thousands more injured, while as many as 25,000 people remain unaccounted for. Earthquake experts have gone further still, warning that the eventual death toll could top 10,000, a projection that underlines just how severe the disaster may yet prove to be.
The destruction was caused by two enormous tremors that struck almost on top of one another. The earthquakes, measured at magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, hit just 39 seconds apart, and aerial views have shown the extent of the damage in the hard-hit coastal city of La Guaira, where building after building has been left damaged or destroyed and there are now fears that some structures still standing could yet collapse.
On the ground, the operation has become a race against the clock to reach people trapped beneath the rubble. There have been moments of joy as survivors were dragged from the ruins, among them a four-year-old boy carried to safety and three more children who emerged covered in dust, but rescuers are acutely aware that the first 48 hours after a quake are the most crucial for finding people alive, and that window is fast closing.
The American deployment is part of a wider international effort converging on Venezuela. Aid and rescue teams from around the world are now on their way, including a specialist team from the Los Angeles County Fire Department, while in Miami volunteers have been packing up supplies of food and medicine for families described as having lost everything in the disaster.
For those living through it, the fear has not passed with the shaking. Residents have described deep cracks opening up in the walls of apartments in buildings still standing, leaving them afraid of further collapses and of the aftershocks that typically follow earthquakes of this size. The coming hours are expected to be decisive both for the rescue effort and for the still-uncertain final scale of the tragedy.