Venezuela quake death toll rises to 2,595: interim president
Rescue workers attend to Hernán Alberto Gil Flores after he was pulled from the rubble eight days after he was trapped by twin earthquakes that struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela cheered and embraced on July 2 after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes, AFP journalists witnessed.
The official death toll has risen to nearly 2,600 and huge numbers of people are still missing, which meant the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle.
Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe.
