Former MLB player Alfonzo searches for family after Venezuela quakes

Former Major League Baseball player Eliezer Alfonzo on Friday searched in a massive mountain of rubble for his wife and daughter, trapped in a hotel after the devastating twin earthquakes last week in Venezuela.

Alfonzo, a Venezuelan catcher who played for the San Francisco Giants and other teams, has been digging in the ruins of a hotel in Macuto, in coastal La Guaira, one of the areas hardest hit by the June 24 quakes.

More than 2,600 people have been killed and thousands more are still missing following one of Latin America's worst earthquake disasters.

Alfonzo said his 16-year-old daughter Eliana Patricia was with her mother Patricia Alejandra on the hotel's fourth floor when the earthquakes struck.

On Friday afternoon, they found Mila, their 3-month-old dog, alive. Her barking alerted the Americans and local rescuers that there was possible life.

"If my daughter's dog turned up, I think they're both there because I know they're quite resilient," Alfonzo, 47, told AFP.

Nearly 200 structures, including whole residential complexes, completely collapsed after the powerful shocks.

Alfonzo said on the day of the earthquakes, they were both getting ready to accompany him to a game of the Delfines de La Guaira, the team in Venezuela's Major Professional Baseball League (LMBP) that he manages.

Before American rescuers arrived, 20 miners from Tumeremo, a gold-rich town in the southern Bolívar state, tunneled through the rubble of the eight-story hotel.

In recent hours, tests have been conducted to detect life among the twisted concrete and metal, he said.

"The dogs are showing signs of life," the baseball player said about the trained rescue dogs, trying to remain composed.

"Until I have them in my arms, I'll continue to believe they're alive," says the player who debuted in the Major Leagues in 2006 with the Giants and played six seasons in Major League Baseball.

"I will stay until the end."

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© Agence France-Presse