With the window for finding survivors rapidly closing more than three days after twin earthquakes devastated Venezuela, rescuers on Sunday managed a miracle: saving the life of an 11-year-old boy who was pulled from the rubble without injury.
A Colombian rescue team worked for six hours to recover the child, Moises, from under nearly 10 feet of rubble in La Guaira, the state that was hardest hit by the quakes.
“How are you? Are you next to the closet?” a worker called to him during the recovery effort. The response from his small voice was barely audible.
The people who saved Moises are among the hundreds of foreign relief workers who have flooded Venezuela to help find survivors. Time is not on their side: Experts say the first 72 hours after a disaster are the most critical for finding victims alive. Doctors who rushed to La Guaira to treat patients have instead found only body after body.
So it was against all odds that Moises was ultimately found not just alive but largely unharmed. “The way the structure collapsed created a pocket of space that sheltered him, and he sustained no injuries,” said Nelson Quintin, a rescuer and firefighter.
The search for other survivors was continuing on Sunday, carried out by civil protection teams and specially trained dogs, but also by ordinary civilians who have rushed to provide aid. The official death toll stands at 1,430 people, but the real number is believed to be far higher.
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