Outbreaks of looting have hit the coastal state of La Guaira -- neighboring Caracas -- much of which is now a vast mountain of rubble after Wednesday's disaster.In a video circulating on social media, a group of people pass around boxes of appliances from a collapsed store. Other videos appear to show looted boxes perched on car roofs or on top of motorcycles.Online accusations are also circulating against police and military personnel who critics allege have been stealing from homes or even from the dead.A branch of a major pharmacy chain was ransacked, as were supermarkets and other businesses, residents say.Some attribute this situation to so-called disaster opportunism but others point to the hunger and destitution of those who have lost everything in a country already in chronic crisis before the quakes."Is it fair that our people are devouring each other?" lamented 71-year-old Maria Esther Bernal, who rented shops to Chinese merchants, all of which were looted. "They even took the wiring." She said a Chinese man had died in a store next door."They were stepping over his body to loot. It was a supermarket," she said.
The twin earthquakes have left vasat parts of La Guaira a mountain of rubble © Miguel MEDINA / POOL/AFP
