"Horrible scene": the drama of the player who lost his family after the earthquake

Argentine Lucas Trejo, who plays for a Venezuelan second division team, lost his wife and two children after last week's earthquakes, the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century.

Trejo plays for Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira and has spent much of the last three days sifting through rubble and looking for signs of his wife Yanina and children Aarón and Ainhoa.

Trejo's brother-in-law, Ricardo Ardiles, told CNN last Friday (26) that the player was "emotionally shaken" and that "absolutely nothing" was left of the family's seaside home in La Guaira, one of the hardest hit areas.

More than 1,400 people have died and thousands of others are missing in Venezuela, as authorities reported over the weekend.

Trejo, 38, was at a team training center in Caracas when the two earthquakes occurred, according to a report by CNN Español. He immediately rushed to his home in La Guaira, 18 miles north of the capital.

"What he found was a horrible scene. He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been. Our hope is that they weren't inside," Ardiles said.

Trejo searched the rubble and searched the area for clues, calling for help that required heavy machinery. Friends and teammates also made a video asking for more machinery.

"Now we only have one machine, but it's not enough," said Robert Garcés, who plays for Metropolitanos F.C. in Venezuela.

The search, however, came to a devastating end. On Sunday (28), Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira said it "deeply regrets the irreparable loss" of Trejo's family in a social media post, sharing a photo of the four together - Trejo with one hand on his daughter's shoulder and the other arm around his wife.

"Lucas, you are not alone. Your family at Marítimo La Guaira is with you", said the publication.

pic.twitter.com/4S01EADkcG

- Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira (@MaritimoLG) June 28, 2026

Last week's disaster, which the US Geological Survey classified as a rare "doublet" with two major earthquakes hitting the country just 39 seconds apart, also killed and affected several football players in the country.

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Yimvert Berroteran, a promising young talent, was among the hundreds of people who died, according to the Venezuelan national team and the Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF).

The 18-year-old played in the U17 World Cup in Doha a few months ago and recently played for the U20 team

The earthquake also claimed the lives of young players Víctor Palacios and Razan Sijaa, according to the FVF and their respective clubs.

Another player's partner, Héctor Bello, died while protecting the couple's young son. "I will make sure to remind our daughter how wonderful you were and how much you loved her," Bello wrote in one post.

The search has already passed the first 72 hours - the most critical window for finding survivors. Historically, after this period, the chances of survival without a water source decrease rapidly. Some studies indicate that most live rescues occur within the first five or six days.

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Source: CNN