More than 50,000 people have gone missing following powerful twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela, the head of humanitarian aid at the United Nations reported on June 26, warning that the death toll is likely to “increase significantly”.
“This is a very complex emergency situation,” said Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, in an interview with AFP. He added: “We have over 50,000 missing, over 500 dead, so there is a huge amount of work ahead in clearing the rubble.”
Updates on casualties and search operations
Fletcher’s comments came after Venezuela’s interim president Delsi Rodriguez announced that the official death toll from the June 26 earthquakes had more than doubled, reaching 589. Rescuers continue to search for survivors beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings.
The earthquakes, which registered magnitudes of 7.5 and 7.2, occurred on June 24 north of the capital, Caracas. Earthquakes of similar magnitude claimed over 200,000 lives in Haiti in January 2010 and 73,000 lives in Kashmir in October 2005.
Fletcher noted that the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which he leads, does not yet have an estimate of how high the death toll might rise.
Source: The Straits Times