Sigue nuestra cobertura en español
Caracas —
A week after the deadly twin earthquakes in Venezuela, the official death count still strikes both Venezuelans and outside observers as remarkably low. Venezuelan authorities said Wednesday at least 2,295 people were killed in the earthquakes, an increase of around 300 from the previous day’s update.
One forensic pathologist, who asked to remain anonymous due to her fear of retaliation, told CNN she believes the government death toll to be a vast undercount, amounting to “not even a third of what is actually there.”
The pathologist said the makeshift morgue where she works in the port city of La Guaira, an area badly impacted by the quakes, is processing around 400 bodies a day, many of them battered beyond recognition or in advanced states of decay. There’s no more room in the refrigerated trucks, forcing them to place body bags outside in the sun, where they decompose quickly.
