Security guard rescued after eight days under rubble as Venezuela earthquake death toll climbs to 2,595

The rescue of Hernán Gil Flores

Rescuers from Chile, Costa Rica, the United States, Portugal, Mexico and El Salvador worked for days to reach Gil Flores, who was trapped in an air pocket beneath nearly nine metres of concrete and debris from the collapsed Galerias Playa Grande shopping centre. He had been inside his small security cabin in the basement when the first 7.2-magnitude tremor struck on June 24, followed minutes later by a 7.5-magnitude quake.

Contact was first made on Saturday, June 27. Using a telescopic camera, teams passed water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft to keep him alive during the final three days. Chilean firefighter Maria Paz Campos talked him through the operation, keeping him calm during the excruciating final hours.

When we found him, he asked us not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn't make it.

His wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, said she had experienced "days of great sorrow" before learning he was alive. "He was holding up like a hero," she said. The couple have two children, aged eight and ten.

Government response under fire

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez held her first press conference with questions on Thursday, eight days after the disaster. She detailed a chronology of immediate actions: activating international coordination within three hours, ordering all available rescue teams to be brought in by 2:33 a.m., and creating an emergency command within hours. She said 19,000 civil and military personnel were deployed after a week, up from 4,000 in the first 24 hours.

Rodríguez pushed back forcefully against widespread criticism that the government was slow and disorganised, leaving civilians to dig through rubble with their bare hands for the first 48 hours. She acknowledged that at collapse sites, "the first people to arrive were survivors of the collapse itself, relatives and neighbours," but rejected what she called "narratives manufactured in propaganda laboratories."

We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately.

To politicize a humanitarian tragedy like this — when the Venezuelan government and its authorities have spared no effort, public, private, national, or international — is disgraceful.

During the same appearance, Rodríguez disclosed that she is suffering from an unspecified "health condition," but said it would not stop her from working "morning, afternoon, night and early morning for Venezuela."

Death toll and the missing

The official death toll rose to 2,595 on Thursday, with at least 12,400 injured. The government said 6,462 people had been rescued alive, but it has not released a figure for the missing. The World Health Organization warned that the total number of dead is likely to "increase considerably" as search-and-rescue shifts to recovery.

Unofficial citizen registries have filled the information gap. The platform "Desaparecidos terremoto Venezuela" received over 80,000 reports; after removing duplicates, organisers estimate around 40,000 people remain unaccounted for, while nearly 16,000 have been located. The United Nations puts the number of missing at 50,000. Rodríguez insisted that every body would be identified, saying, "I said from the start: no one goes to a mass grave."

Solidarity and digital networks

With internet and mobile phone service collapsing in the first hours, Venezuelans turned social media into a support network. Families posted photos and details of missing loved ones, while volunteers used the same platforms to report who had been found alive, who had died, and who was hospitalised. The UN mission called on authorities to "fully restore access to social media and all media," arguing that information in an emergency is "fundamental for the protection of life, safety and well-being."

On the ground, a wave of volunteerism swept the country. IT workers built websites to locate the missing, engineers offered free building inspections, tailors sewed clothes and blankets, and veterinarians treated pets for free. In Caracas, Alejandra González and a group of 15 friends cook hundreds of meals daily for survivors and rescue workers. "In many of the places where rescued people are taken there is no way to cook," she said. One night, rescuers in Los Palos Grandes needed 300 plates at 10 p.m.; her group delivered them.