At least 235 dead and over 46,000 missing after double earthquake strikes Venezuela

What happened

On the evening of 24 June, two powerful earthquakes hit Venezuela in quick succession. The first, with a magnitude of 7.2, struck at a depth of 22 km approximately 28 km west of the town of Morón. About 40 seconds later, a second, stronger shock of 7.5 magnitude followed, at a depth of just 10 km and 16 km southwest of Morón. Both epicentres were located on the complex fault zone along the northern coast, where the South American and Caribbean plates grind past each other.

At such a strong earthquake, this is not a common occurrence. The most important thing is that a huge amount of energy was released and, unfortunately, much of it reached the surface because the hypocentre was shallow.

Casualties and missing persons

By early Friday morning, Health Minister Carlos Alvarado put the confirmed death toll at around 235, with at least 4,300 injured. He noted that the real number is likely much higher. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) had earlier modelled a possible death range of 10,000 to 100,000. A missing-persons platform set up by the opposition listed over 46,000 names by Thursday night, though Reuters said it could not independently verify the figure. Survivors described a cityscape of collapsed buildings and cries from the rubble.

I thought I was going to die. The building is completely destroyed, the walls are cracked.

I have never experienced anything like this. There was a very loud bang. Everything in the house fell.

International aid mobilised

The United States moved quickly, with President Donald Trump declaring on Truth Social that the death toll was devastating and that the U.S. was ready to help. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the immediate deployment of search-and-rescue teams, medical supplies, and $150 million in humanitarian aid, alongside two warships and aircraft for logistics. Washington also temporarily eased sanctions to facilitate relief transactions. Starlink said it would provide free internet for a month in affected areas and was distributing terminals to restore communications.

Both earthquakes … are huge in scope and left a devastating death toll. The United States is ready, willing and able to help.

Other nations responded rapidly. The Czech Republic put its heavy USAR rescue team on standby, ready to fly out once a formal request arrives. Germany offered up to six A400M transport planes, Switzerland dispatched rescue dogs and equipment, the Netherlands allocated €2 million, and Italy, France, Portugal, El Salvador, Mexico, and Qatar all sent specialised teams. UN-coordinated teams were also en route.

A rare seismic doublet and structural vulnerability

Seismologists described the pair of quakes as an earthquake doublet, a phenomenon in which two distinct large shocks occur on the same fault system within seconds or minutes. Aleš Špičák, director of the Geophysical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, said no quakes of this magnitude had been recorded in the area in over 100 years. The last comparable event was a magnitude 7.7 tremor in 1900. The shallowness of the hypocentres meant energy reached the surface almost unattenuated, and the rapid sequence left no time for early-warning systems to give useful notice. Venezuela’s seismic monitoring network has been degraded by years of economic crisis and underinvestment, limiting both detection and the speed of public alerts.

Humanitarian and political response

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez declared a state of emergency and announced a $200 million support fund using IMF money. The main airport in Maiquetía, near Caracas, was closed due to damage. A platform normally used to track political detainees, Venezuela Te Busca, was repurposed to collect reports of missing persons, receiving more than 10,000 entries within hours. Rodríguez faced criticism from citizens and opposition figures for what they described as a slow public response in the first hours after the disaster.