Rescuers dig out Venezuelan man eight days after quakes

Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela cheered and embraced Thursday after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes, AFP journalists witnessed.

The official death toll has risen to nearly 2,600 and huge numbers of people are still missing, which meant the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle.

Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe.

"This is truly a miracle," Gil's wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP as rescuers worked to free him.

One of Latin America's worst earthquake disasters crushed scores of residential apartment complexes, burying many in the rubble and triggering an international rescue operation.

Teams from seven countries -- Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico -- worked around the clock over three days to reach Gil.

They provided him with more than ten liters of water to keep him hydrated via a hose and installed a tube to provide him with oxygen.

During the final phase of the operation, about 30 people worked in the building's parking area to clear away debris, while two rescuers dug a three-meter tunnel.

"It wasn't easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located," Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team, told AFP. 

However, while there have been a few astounding rescues -- a three-year-old boy was found Tuesday, six days after the quake -- hope has faded of finding many more survivors.

The focus is now shifting to survival for those who escaped the quakes. 

Many are homeless, food and water are becoming scarce and hospitals are stretched to the limit, with experts warning of the risk of disease outbreaks.

Venezuelans have not hidden their anger at what they see as the government's inadequate response to the disaster, with help arriving slowly for many.

Speaking at a press conference late on Thursday, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez defended her government's response to dispatch military and civilian officials to help.

"In the first 24 hours, it reached 4,000 personnel, and within 48 hours there were 11,000 officials," she told reporters. 

She said the death toll had risen to 2,595 with more than 12,400 wounded. But she dismissed any plans for mass graves of those killed.

While the government has not given any figure for the number missing, the UN has estimated as many as 50,000 people are still unaccounted for.

- 'Would take a miracle' -

The two powerful quakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, shattered entire neighborhoods in oil-rich Venezuela, which has suffered decades of economic crisis that devastated infrastructure and health services.

NASA data shows almost 60,000 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed.

Officials say 13,000 people had been left homeless -- many of them sleeping in tents on the streets, parks and vacant lots.

The majority of collapsed buildings in the hardest-hit city of La Guaira, just north of Caracas, have been marked with the letter 'D' for 'deceased' -- a sign they had been searched with no signs of life found.

Relatives, volunteers, and rescue workers were largely focused on retrieving the dead.

In Los Corales area, Hernan Sandoval was trying to dig out his 8-year-old son Ronald and his nephew and niece, Leo, 8, and Victoria Madera, 10, buried in the collapse of their La Gambarra complex.

"I ran out like a desperate madman" to save them, he said. "My heart broke. I cried a little and then kept going. I've searched for him in so many places."

"I still have a lot of faith."

Chances of finding anyone alive beneath deep rubble dwindle rapidly after a critical 72-hour window.

Cesar Gonzalez, 54, a Mexican firefighter and handler of search-and-rescue dogs, gave water to his two dogs, Zeus and Bom.

"One is for detecting the living, the other for cadavers. Just two days ago, there was much more hope. Now, it would take a miracle," to find anyone alive, he said.

- 'We lost everything' -

The World Food Programme on Tuesday appealed for $50 million to feed some 500,000 people for three months in Venezuela.

Queues for aid are growing longer by the day, with many surviving on the goodwill of volunteers and donations from fellow citizens.

On a soccer field, Maria Arteaga, 33, a mother of four, prepared to sleep Wednesday night in an improvised shelter made of tarps and a Venezuelan flag. 

"We lost everything, except our lives. We're even barefoot," she told AFP.

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© Agence France-Presse