Amid loss and rubble, Venezuela's earthquake survivors refuse to lose dignity

The author is president of Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association and full-time faculty at the University of the Philippines. She is also a member of International League of Peoples’ Struggle and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan

Before the earth shook, Venezuela was already bleeding under the weight of US sanctions, a blockade, the constant threat of regime change. On June 24, the assault came from a different direction. The earth itself rebelled. Two violent tremors, one of magnitude 7.2 and another of 7.5, struck seconds apart.

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I learned of this tragedy not on the ground, but from the sky. I was on a plane, engrossed in a musical, when I checked the flight map. We were an hour from landing at Simón Bolívar Airport. That hour became two, then three. Little did I know that an hour before we were supposed to touch down, Venezuela had been struck by the strongest earthquake in over a century.

By the time I reached Caracas, the initial count of 235 dead had grown to 1,450. More than 3,150 were wounded, nearly 69,000 were missing or trapped under the rubble, and 774 buildings had collapsed.

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On the ground, rescue operations were crippled by a brutal shortage of heavy equipment—bulldozers, excavators, cranes. The very machines that could have shifted concrete and rebar were scarce, a direct consequence of years of US sanctions that had blocked Venezuela from procuring this equipment and spare parts . Rescue workers, military and civilian alike, did what they could with what they had. But the earth refused to be still. Aftershocks continued, collapsing what little remained standing and forcing workers to pull back again and again.

Earthquake and eternity pool

Our flight was diverted to Panama. For two days, we were housed in an extravagant beachfront hotel with an "eternity pool." A wonderland of free food, sun, and sea. An illusion of paradise. Yet the Venezuelans on that flight could barely leave the lobby. They didn't rest in their rooms or swim. They were glued to their phones; all they wanted was home.

I watched them from across the lobby, their bodies present but their minds elsewhere—in La Guaira, in Caracas, in the rubble of their neighborhoods. Their anguish was palpable, and I felt it too. I checked the news alongside them, scrolling through images of collapsed buildings, reading the rising death toll, my own stomach tightening with each update. I was a stranger who had stumbled into their grief, and I carried it as best as I could.

After two days, no one wanted another moment in that wonderland, even when everything was free. We were given the option to go back to Istanbul, and from there to our flight origin—for me, the Philippines. A few opted for this, but most of us were fiercely determined to reach Venezuela. It was not a choice but a necessity.

Against all odds, our airline found a way. Before takeoff, the pilot spoke over the intercom. He expressed his condolences and solidarity. He acknowledged the closed airports, the shattered roads, the national tragedy—and then said this flight was happening because they understood hope, care, love, and solidarity. No one on that flight would claim they didn't clap their fiercest. Another round of applause accompanied our glorious, emotional landing.

Upon reaching Caracas late that evening, I began to understand. News reports and images on mass media make it appear as though Venezuela has become a no-man's-land. It isn't. The life of the city, the resilience of its people, persevered.

Caracas rises

It is June 27, barely two and a half days since the tragedy. Caracas has mobilised. There are three distinct zones of work. Zone Zero is where human beings remain under the rubble. Access is restricted—accreditation required, the site militarized and sealed off. Only health workers, trained experts in excavación y rescate, search and rescue dogs, and military personnel are permitted here. Zone One is the hospitals, where the injured are treated. Zone Two is the classification and repacking of donations—where ordinary citizens can contribute, no enlistment needed.

We started with perhaps 40 volunteers, a modest assembly. Donations arrived in labelled boxes: romper caballero, romper niños, romper damas, zapatos de niña. A tent for medicines, another for water, another for dry food. Everything was organised, deliberate. A woman sat at a folding table with a marker, her handwriting precise and unhurried, creating labels. Her work was the first act of ordering chaos.

But what struck me most was the quality control.

We sorted through stacks of bags. Most were already labelled, their contents matching with surprising accuracy. We were examining them a second time, verifying, correcting. As I placed a blanket into the growing mountain of sábanas (bed sheets), a young woman paused. She reached in, pulled it out, and examined it with the intensity of a jeweler. She held it to the light. "Stains," she said. "No. Not useful." I held up a pair of denim jeans—stylishly tattered, the kind one pays good money for. She shook her head. "This won't protect anyone from the cold." She turned to a red shirt being evaluated by another volunteer and called our group together, her voice soft but firm. "See these tiny holes?" she said. "No. We cannot give this away." At that moment, our work shifted. We were not just classifying. We were the brigada de control de calidad—the quality control brigade.

It wasn't about acquisition, it was about giving with dignity or the insistence that even in disaster, even in the rubble, the people of Venezuela deserved the best we could offer.

I was reminded of the dignity Venezuelans reserve for themselves and their people. It is a fierce, unyielding thing. The same dignity that kept them on their feet through sanctions, blockades, the constant threat of regime change. The same dignity that made them refuse to distribute substandard aid, that made them insist on quality and respect—the recognition that the victims of this tragedy were not beggars but human beings, deserving of warmth and care.

By the time we were about to leave, we were no longer forty. We were in our hundreds. Everyone moved with decisiveness. There was no confusion, no hesitation. Each person knew their role in this grand machinery of compassion.

The organisation emerged not only from official directive but ostensibly from the sheer will of a people who refused to be paralysed by grief. They had transformed sorrow into action, despair into purpose. I witnessed something I will carry forever: A nation, wounded but not broken, rising to meet its own tragedy with open hands and fierce hearts.

(A longer version of this account was also published on Bulatlat.com)