The death toll from the June 24 twin earthquakes in Venezuela has reached 2,595 with 12,000 injured and 38,500 missing. Although there are now 50 international rescue teams on the ground, having arrived with specialized equipment, trained personnel and medicine, more continue to arrive—some not only from governments and international agencies but from individual provinces within nations. The Trump administration is playing up the fact that the U.S. Southern Command has deployed 900 military members, including civilian and military logistics teams to assist with humanitarian efforts –after having imposed 1,000 sanctions on Venezuela over the past decade which gutted its economy and infrastructure, The Washington Post reported. However, troops did immediately repair one damaged runway at the Simon Bolivar international airport facilitating arrival of humanitarian aid.
Spirits were lifted over the past two days when Venezuelan Hernan Gil was rescued July 2 after eight days under the rubble by members of seven international teams. And a toddler was rescued alive after eight days under the rubble in La Guaira. But the rescue tasks ahead are monumental in a situation that has been described as a “war zone” or something akin to Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
An immediate danger is that infectious diseases that have already appeared will spread rapidly in crowded unsanitary conditions. UN agencies, the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization and others warn that crowded makeshift camps with unsanitary conditions lack access to clean water, and many of their inhabitants have untreated injuries. Even hospitals that are open, such as those in hard hit La Guaira, are overcrowded, suffering from shortages of instruments or non-functional ones and frequent power outages. WHO s Christian Lindmeier, spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) [was quoted on the Voice of Vietnam website](https://vovworld.vn/news/who-warns-of-multiple-disease-outbreak-risks-after-venezuela-earthquakes-2447047.vov5 ) warning of the spread of “vaccine-preventable” diseases such as measles and diphtheria, noting that administration of vaccines in Venezuela had been significantly reduced well before the earthquakes.
