Earthquakes in Venezuela: at least 920 dead and 50,000 missing, the state of La Guaira "militarized"

At least 920 dead and more than 50,000 missing: the death toll from the double earthquake in Venezuela continues to rise, and despair grows in the face of limited aid from the authorities.

The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes that struck the north of the country on Wednesday left a landscape of devastation, with countless collapsed buildings, particularly in La Guaira, a coastal city near Caracas, where the population is denouncing the inadequacy of local rescue operations.

The death toll rose to 920 on Friday, announced the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez.

In Geneva, the UN's humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, told AFP that more than 50,000 people were missing. The death toll is therefore expected to "rise considerably," in the context of "an extremely complex rescue operation."

In La Guaira, many buildings are now nothing more than mountains of rubble.

Families, neighbors and volunteers are calling for specialized machines to be able to cut steel bars or move the imposing blocks of stone.

Marlon Ochoa survived a building collapse. "I'm looking for my mother, my wife and my son," he said, "we need help, there are people alive" and "we're not being given tools" to get them out of the rubble.

In a speech on Friday night, interim president Delcy Rodriguez, in power since January and the capture of Nicolas Maduro by the United States, announced that 14,000 military and police officers had been deployed in the state of La Guaira, "militarized to guarantee security".

AFP had observed looting in the area on Thursday.

- International aid -

Nearly 48 hours after the most devastating earthquakes recorded in Venezuela since 1900, international search and rescue teams from at least 17 countries began to intervene in the crisis-stricken country with a health system in a sorry state.

The United States announced on Friday that it would deploy a team of 250 people on site, after offering $150 million and sending two warships, transport planes and helicopters.

Standing in front of a group of five collapsed buildings in La Guaira, the head of a Chilean rescue contingent, Nadiomar Polanco, estimated that there was "unfortunately (...) little chance of finding people alive".

His team, the first to arrive on the scene according to him, is focused on searching for the bodies of "people who have already died".

At least 28 people of Portuguese nationality or origin, seven Chinese, five Spaniards, two Brazilians, one Chilean and one Italian-Venezuelan are among the dead.

- President booed -

In La Guaira, where the country's main airport is located, rendered unusable by the earthquake, some residents are trying to free their buried relatives themselves.

"He's there," sobbed Alessandro del Giudice, a 23-year-old man trying to find his father under a mountain of rubble.

His grandmother Amparo, in despair, tries to clear the ruins with her bare hands to find her son. "There are many blocks of stone, we cannot remove them with our hands," she observes helplessly.

"The authorities are useless, useless. The military should be here with all the machinery they have," denounces Argenis Méndez, a resident.

President Delcy Rodriguez was booed on Friday near a collapsed building in an affluent area of Caracas.

"Enough with campaigning in the middle of a tragedy like the one we are experiencing," a group of locals and relatives of people trapped under the rubble shouted at him, an AFP journalist observed.

Ms. Rodriguez then said she received a call from US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who assured her of their support "during this difficult time for Venezuela".

Opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado called for the release of "all political prisoners", both civilian and military, "so that they can be reunited with their families in these tragic hours".

The earthquakes were felt as far away as Colombia and Brazil. Since then, more than 300 aftershocks have been reported. Venezuela is a country at risk of earthquakes, even though no major earthquake had been recorded there since 1997.

On Friday, the football World Cup matches were preceded by minutes of silence in tribute to the victims.