The death toll from twin earthquakes in Venezuela more than doubled Friday to 589, interim president Delcy Rodriguez said, as rescuers boosted by international teams raced to find survivors beneath collapsed buildings.
Rescuers used heavy machinery but also just bare hands in a race to pluck out people caught under rubble in the earthquake zone west of the capital Caracas.
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At one of the flattened buildings, AFP saw workers using sledgehammers to break the debris and calling for “absolute silence” to detect cries from survivors.
However, the abrupt increase in the official toll was only expected to keep rising.
