LA GUAIRA, Venezuela — Despondent that rescuers had not arrived to search for his family — buried in the rubble after last week’s twin quakes — Rubén Darío Sillie turned to social media.
“We are alone, men by ourselves picking up stones, beams, totally alone,” Sillie recountedon Instagram.
He broke into tears as he stood in front of the collapsed, eight-story building, La Orca, where he resided with his wife and two daughters, in the Las Playas neighborhood of the quake-decimated city of La Guaira fronting the Caribbean.
“We need tractors, rescue workers, on Bella Vista Street,” pleaded Sillie, 44, a business consultant. “Please. We need help.”
His lament mirrored the anguish of legions of Venezuelans who endured harrowing days clearing rubble by hand before crews with heavy equipment and rescue dogs belatedly arrived. By then, it was too late for many entombed in the detritus.
As of Tuesday, the official death toll from the two quakes — the deadliest in more than two centuries to hit the South American nation— approached 2,000. The number of injured exceeded 10,000. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, remained missing.
The U.S.-backed interim government of President Delcy Rodríguez has come under withering criticism for its failure to respond more decisively. A massive military and security apparatus dedicated for more than a quarter-century to propping up the the ruling socialist government, critics say, has botched an essential mission of humanitarian relief — and even hindered volunteer rescue efforts.
It wasn’t until foreign relief teams began deploying en masse on Friday and Saturday — well after the dual temblors struck on Wednesday evening — that systemic searches began in quake-battered areas like La Guaira, ground zero of the catastrophe.
Early Wednesday evening, Sillie was at home in his second-floor apartment planning to watch the World Cup match between Brazil and Scotland. With him were his father, wife and 15-year-old daughter, Camila.
The couple’s youngest, Dariana, 10, was upstairs in the top-floor apartment where Sillie’s sister and her husband lived.
At about kickoff time, Sillie said, his cell-phone texted a seismic alert. The family scrambled beneath a door frame, a time-worn strategy based on the belief, often mistaken, that doorways offer protection.
“That’s when the building came down like a stack of dominos,” Sillie recalled. “I was knocked out.”
He awoke to the piercing screams of his daughter. Embracing him was his wife. She was unconscious, with severe trauma to her head.
“She died in my arms,” Sillie said.
Blood dripped from his head; his father and daughter had various injuries. Albeit in shock, all were conscious.
The three reached an excruciating decision: They had to make their way outside and seek help before additional debris crushed them or cut off any escape.
“We had no choice but to leave my wife behind,” he said.
The three, adrenaline pumping, clambered through the pancaked wreckage. They made it to a nearby clinic, San Antonio de Catia al Mar, where the besieged staff was implementing emergency triage, prioritizing those with life-threatening conditions. The three were treated and released.
“They sewed up my wounds and in the early morning I went back to our building,” Sillie said.
His wife, sister, brother-in-law and youngest daughter were somewhere in the rubble pile — one of the many heaps of concrete, re-bar, plaster and other debris that were all that that remained of scores of buildings throughout La Guaira, a city of 25,000.
But there were no police. No firefighters. No army. Just civilian volunteers burrowing through the jagged piles.
“Since there was no help, it occurred to me to make a video with a telephone that someone lent me,” he said.
The video was a social-media hit, encapsulating the prevalent mood of indignation about official non-action.
In Sillie’s view, the on-line post motivated Venezuelan soldiers and police to respond to his home. They recovered a number of bodies, including that of Sillie’s wife. They also found a boy, 10, alive.
The wife’s badly disfigured body, covered with a sheet, lay on the sidewalk for hours, said Norka Inés Villalonga, Sillie’s mother-in-law. Relatives and friends convinced her not to view her daughter’s remains, which were finally moved to La Guaira’s reeling José María Vargas Hospital.
“My daughter wasn’t taken to the morgue, she was transported to the hospital parking lot,” Villalonga said. “When I arrived there were 900 dead there. … It was a river of the dead.”
Her son, who accompanied her, faced a macabre task: He zipped opened one body bag after another to identify his sister. He recognized her hair and earrings. She was corpse No. 280.
Meanwhile, frightful after-shocks continued to rock the area, sowing terror in a population already reaching the limits of endurance.
Finally, the family secured an official death certificate and arranged for the cremation of Carleydi Lozada, 43, mother of two.
Back at his building, Sillie says, the Venezuelan rescue contingent soon decamped. Still missing was his youngest daughter, his sister and his brother-in-law. Sillie posted a second video, the cell phone panning to the ruins against a blue-sky backdrop.
“Please come, at least help us to get the bodies out,” pleaded Sillie, his head covered in bandages.
Soon, a chilling report began circulating among family and friends.
Word spread that Sillie’s missing brother-in-law had sent a cellphone text message: “We are trapped, help.”
Were they still alive? Relatives were never able to track down the rumored recipient. Whether the episode amounted to anything beyond hearsay amid the ubiquitous sense of mass confusion and despair remains a question mark.
“In these times in Venezuela, there is no certainty about anything,” said Vicente Forte, a cousin of Sillie. “Everything is by word of mouth.”
Eventually, emergency squads from across across the globe descended on La Guaira.
“Brother, I’m not leaving here with my group until we find your last family member,” a team leader from Argentina assured Sillie.
The two embraced.
“He had complete empathy with me,” Sillie said. “I will be thankful to him forever.”
By Monday afternoon, searchers had recovered the bodies of his sister, Jeannina Sillie, and her husband, Juan Bastidas, both 51-year-old doctors. Still missing was 10-year-old Dariana.
Her father vowed to retain his vigil.
“My daughter could be alive,” he said. “She could be in a cavity, or gap — in an air bubble. It could be. Miracles do happen. One cannot lose hope.”
Hope ran its course. As midnight neared on Monday, rescuers pulled Dariana’s body from the mound of debris that had once been her home.
Special correspondent Mogollón reported from La Guaira, and Times Staff Writer McDonnell from Mexico City. Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed from Mexico City.
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