Is there anyone alive? 12 hours with Venezuelan doctors in the disaster zone

A medical team set out from the capital to rescue people in the hardest-hit part of the disaster zone, La Guaira. They found silence in the ruins insteadDr Zaira Medina, director of the Pérez de León Hospital in Caracas, left, embraces a member of the rescue team outside the apartment building where she lived, in La Guaira, Venezuela. Photograph: Fabiola Ferrero/The New York Times

Fabiola FerreroJulie TurkewitzMon Jun 29 2026 - 14:36 • 4 MIN READThe doctors thought they were going out to save lives. When they arrived at the heart of Venezuela’s disaster zone, they were told they would be searching for the dead.On Friday, less than 48 hours after two major earthquakes shook Venezuela, Dr Zaira Medina (58) gathered a team of doctors and donated supplies and set out for La Guaira, the nearby state on the country’s sparkling coast that had been hardest hit in the disaster.“I am going to war,” she told the medical staff she was leaving behind. They gathered around her. “Make sure to be loving to the people who come here. If there is a kid, hug the kid.”Medina, director of the Pérez de León Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, didn’t know what to expect. But she had a destination, her home in La Guaira, and a goal: rescue her neighbours.Dr Zaira Medina, director of the Pérez de León Hospital in Caracas, addresses her staff before leaving for the hardest-hit earthquake zone, La Guaira. Photograph: Fabiola Ferrero/The New York Times