By Alejandra Garcia on June 25, 2026
The author of this article reporting from Telesur soon after the devastating earthquakes hit. screen grab: Bill Hackwell
The teleSUR building in Caracas withstood the impact of the two earthquakes, magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, that shook Venezuela on Wednesday, but the scars remained. There were walls scratched by the fury of the telluric movement, fallen ceiling tiles, and traces of shattered glass from several computers that crashed to the floor.
What happened at 6:05 p.m. on June 24 was terrifying. First, an alarm went off on the phones of everyone at the station, warning of the earthquake. In the confusion, we only understood what was happening when the floor began to vibrate, first very gently, and then brutally.
We rushed down narrow staircases, swaying from side to side like a ship in turbulent waters. The walls cracked behind us. I feared a stampede. No one was prepared for such an unpredictable event in a country that, despite being located between two tectonic plates, the Caribbean and the South American, has not experienced a disaster of this magnitude since last century.
Minutes later, we were on air. We reported live from the studio, feeling every aftershock, of which there have been more than 140 since Wednesday night. What we experienced was the preamble to the true disaster, which took on a face and proportions as teleSUR’s uninterrupted broadcast progressed, sustaining itself for 24 hours since that Wednesday afternoon.
For several hours, the image remained the same. Calm amidst the chaos. The people have maintained an admirable discipline. But the shock does not ease; although we are out of danger, we are not indifferent to the pain.
In Chacao, the capital municipality hardest hit by the collapses, we saw rescuers raise their fists, demanding absolute silence over the ruins of Residencias Rita. There, a young woman wept, clinging to the debris of her home. Beneath the concrete slabs, three members of her family remained trapped. After several minutes of absolute silence, we learned the worst certainty: there were no longer any signs of life. With time running out, the rescue team had to pack up their tools and march to another point with a higher probability of a miracle. She was left weeping over the dust.
The tragedy struck a country in the middle of a national holiday, just as Saint John the Baptist was being commemorated. Amidst the collapse of a residential building in the San Bernardino community, a man who managed to run out in time saw the walls confine three of his family members, including a 21-year-old youth. Before the national television cameras, his face broken by tears, the man wasn’t speaking to the reporter; he was imploring the Baptist directly, on his own feast day, for the miracle of seeing them again.
Damage in the port city of La Guiria
In La Guaira, the landscape is one of absolute desolation, with hundreds of structures turned to dust and some 70,000 lives fractured by grief and material loss. The cruelest face of the catastrophe is reduced to a single corner: a mother, holding a baby just two days old in her arms, wanders among the ruins of what was her home, trying to shield her son from the cold and the elements after losing everything.
That is the most painful crack of this tragedy; a fracture that, nevertheless, has exposed the most deeply human and supportive esence of the Venezuelan people. Images of pain blend with those of tenderness. On one of the sidewalks of the capital, an elderly man wrapped in blankets rests on an improvised chair, guarded and comforted by a network of neighbors who refuse to leave him alone.
The response to the tragedy began long before any official directive. In Chacao and the rest of the affected areas, state brigades work hand-in-hand with community neighbors. Everything is used to clear debris, from heavy machinery to bare hands, hammers, or any other improvised tool. In this tragedy, the first retaining wall has been the people.
Twenty-four hours after both earthquakes, the victims are not alone. Rescue brigades from all latitudes are arriving in the country to help with the rescue operations, which are already beginning to blend with local groups. Meanwhile, solidarity is also triggering a chain reaction: people are already gathering donations of clothing and food, determined to lift up, hand-in-hand, those who were left with nothing.
Alejandra Garcia is a Latin American correspondent for Resumen Latinoamericano and an evening anchor for Telesur evening news in English
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English