Mother digs through rubble in search of son after earthquakes in Venezuela

A man searches for survivors in the rubble of a building that collapsed after two earthquakes in Caraballeda, state of La Guaira
AFP
Amparo del Giudice digs with her own hands through a mountain of rubble in search of her son, one of the victims of the most devastating earthquakes in Venezuela since 1900.
Her tragedy is one of many left by two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, which they reached northern Venezuela on Wednesday (24) less than a minute apart. The official death toll is 589, but there is fear that the final number could reach thousands.
Desperate with the passage of time without the arrival of rescue teams, Giudice dug with her hands while crying and screaming, inconsolable, in a neighborhood of La Guaira, the region most hit by the earthquakes.
"There are a lot of stones and, with your hands, you can't do it", she says, helplessly, sitting a few meters from the place where she believes her son is. "There isn't even any water," he says, complaining about the lack of help from the government.
Alessandro del Giudice, 23, put on his volunteer firefighter's helmet again to help his grandmother Amparo find a sign of life for his father. "It's there", he sobs.
La Guaira, with around 25 thousand inhabitants and located 40 kilometers from Caracas, is home to the Maiquetía international airport and is the favorite resort for residents of the capital.
Most of the tall buildings with swimming pools were damaged in Los Corales, a middle-class neighborhood where Giudice finds no peace.
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'Pérez family, alive'
President Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power on an interim basis after the capture of Nicolás Maduro by the United States in January, visited the region on Thursday (25), which she declared a "disaster zone" and where the AFP found looting.
The Minister of Health, Carlos Alvarado, reported on Thursday night a toll of 235 deaths and 4,300 injuries. Unofficial estimates speak of tens of thousands of missing people, although the official number is just over a hundred.
Clouds of dust still hover between luxurious buildings overlooking the Caribbean Sea, reduced to mountains of rubble and pain.
Many of the buildings along the coast have become uninhabitable, while others have disappeared. The main road bordering La Guaira broke in several places.
Two five-star hotels were among the structures that collapsed.
Rescue teams and volunteers climbed mountains of rubble from what were once towers up to 15 stories high. Screams with the names of the missing echoed between huge cracked walls.
"Pérez family, alive", reads the side of a house that appears to have been ripped from the earth.
There are destroyed structures and sad faces everywhere.
The aftershocks continue, and some seriously affected buildings creak with each one.
Building damaged after earthquake in La Guaira, Venezuela
REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno
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Source: G1