We sometimes forget how fortunate we are. We do not sit where any tectonic plates converge, neither are we in a hurricane zone. We do of course have a problem with flooding which the authorities over many decades have failed to address in any comprehensive way. But even disasters of the scale of 2005 here bear no comparison to the nightmare which north-eastern Venezuela experienced on June 24th.
Although we do not usually think of Venezuela as earthquake-prone, it does have a history of quakes going back centuries, albeit not as frequent as those in Turkey or Japan, perhaps. The worst in modern times was that in 1900, although in terms of living memory there was one in 1997 in the province of Sucre. It is the Caracas quake in 1967, however, which is what the older generation will usually first recall when pondering their nation’s history of geological instability.
The effects of the earthquake on the region of La Guaira, situated on the coast, and Caracas behind it, have been extraordinarily destructive. Northern Venezuela sits where the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates converge, and it is crossed by a system of geological faults. To put it simplistically there are three main such faults with other secondary ones. According to an expert contacted by France24, the fault system runs from east to west and the earthquakes occurred as a result of “a superficial horizontal slip fault” between the two plates.
One of the reasons there was so much destruction on this occasion was because there were two quakes and not one, a phenomenon known technically as a ‘doublet earthquake’. The first read 7.2 on the Richter scale, but the second was stronger, at 7.5. Doublet earthquakes are certainly not unknown elsewhere, but in terms of timing they are far more spaced than on this occasion, which recorded only 39 seconds between the first and the second. It has been suggested that buildings which had been shaken by the initial earthquake suffered significant structural damage, but their collapse was attributable to the second quake which brought down already compromised structures.
The second reason for the extent of the devastation was the shallowness of the earthquakes, meaning that the shock waves had a relatively short distance to travel to the surface, thereby increasing their capacity for destruction. The first quake was 20 kilometres deep, and the second only 10.
La Guaira on the coast took the brunt of the shock, even although the epicentre was kilometres distant. The reason, it has been posited, is that one of the three main fault lines runs very close to the coast, and the second quake followed this route. In addition, unlike most other parts of the country the soils of La Guaira are of sedimentary origin and are not compact. As a consequence they amplify seismic waves.
But inevitably there is a human element in this story and that is the quality of the buildings themselves. Following the 1967 Caracas earthquake rigorous construction standards came into force to mitigate the damage during quakes. Some buildings may predate these, but what is clear is that even since then the regulations have not always been adhered to.
It seems the government itself is a primary defaulter. La Guaira had another disaster in 1999, when flooding and landslides caused huge destruction and thousands were left homeless. The late President Hugo Chávez inaugurated the Housing Mission there, and eight multi-story tower blocks were built to provide apartments for the homeless. Today six of these lie pancaked on the ground, underneath which few, if anybody, would have survived.
The building regulations were intended not so much to prevent the collapse of a structure in a really strong earthquake, as to give people time to evacuate. The residents of the La Guaira area and parts of Caracas did not have this. The situation was compounded by the fact that most people were at home because it was a public holiday. A Venezuelan civil engineer was quoted as saying: “Earthquakes do not kill by themselves. Vulnerable constructions, lack of planning and misinformation do.”
For us here in Guyana which has a small population it is difficult to apprehend the vast scale of the tragedy which has struck our neighbour. The official death toll is now around two-and-a-half thousand, but the real loss comes in relation to the missing, who may number anything like forty thousand. At this late stage they will not be found alive, and even their bodies might never be recovered. At some point the debris will be cleared by heavy machinery, no matter the human remains inside.
The experts say the first 24 hours after an earthquake is critical for rescue purposes, although most will give the period of 72 hours as the time span when victims can still be found alive. A few have said 96 hours. After that, any retrieval of living people is regarded as a ‘miracle rescue’.
The Americans, with their capacity for logistics and organization in a crisis put La Guaira port back into operation, and subsequently made one runway at Maiquetía, Venezuela’s main airport, viable to facilitate the faster entry of aid. And specialised help has come from a wide range of countries, particularly on this continent, with the Mexicans sending a large, very experienced trained team early on.
Along with their dogs, who played a critical role in identifying the living under the rubble, these international teams brought specialised equipment, such as acoustic listening devices, cameras, micro-drones, disc cutters and angle grinders, among other things. The problem was that even though there were many teams, the destruction covered such a vast area and so many buildings had collapsed, they could only concentrate on a few localities.
And then there is the matter of the role of the state. Resident after resident digging in the rubble with their bare hands complained to a whole range of international reporters that the state was simply absent in the first 48 hours. They had no access to heavy machinery and were digging with their bare hands and shovels. Some said that if they had had machinery people could have been saved in that period, because they could hear them, but that they got no help. When officialdom did appear they either watched, or in the case of the police, directed traffic. One frustrated civilian with injured arms and hands and covered with dust, pointed to their “spotless uniforms”. Uniformed officials have also been accused of looting, theft and unbelievably, extortion.
People’s anger was made apparent to interim President Delcy Rodríguez when she visited some earthquake areas and was given a hostile reception.
The extent of the disaster would have constituted a challenge for even a well-ordered state, but Venezuela is far from that. Its economy is in collapse, it is riddled with corruption, its institutions are in a state of deterioration and its most competent public servants left a long time ago. That it couldn’t rise to the challenge of the immediate aftermath of the quake should come as no surprise, any more than should its limitations in managing the humanitarian crisis that has followed in its wake.
According to Sky News President Rodríguez has angrily denied the accusations about the state’s response as “disgraceful” misinformation, maintaining it was not too slow or that the government’s allegedly shoddy social housing exacerbated the catastrophe. Eighty per cent of the collapsed buildings, she said, had been privately developed. Angry denials will not help her, of course. What the political consequences of all of this will be cannot yet be said, but it might be noted that opposition leader María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela at this time has been thwarted by the US.
As for Guyana, it had no specialist teams to offer, but it is giving help in what is now a critical area in terms of food and medical supplies. This has nothing to do with how Venezuelan governments have behaved towards this country over the decades; this is about the suffering of our fellow human beings quite unrelated to the state of which they are a part. The distinction must not be forgotten.
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