CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The fallout from Venezuela’s powerful twin quakes has evolved into a major test for acting President Delcy Rodríguez, sending her scrambling to prevent the humanitarian disaster from becoming a political one as her mandate as interim leader expires Friday. A day after Rodríguez angrily defended the competence of her government’s relief effort at her first news conference since the June 24 disaster, her main rival, exiled Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, issued her own appeal. Speaking Friday from Panama, Machado argued that the government’s quake response exposed its critical weaknesses and that her return to Venezuela “contributes to facilitating the transition process, especially after the tragedy.”“My presence stabilizes the situation; it is part of the organizing forces that the country needs at a time when the total absence of the state has become evident,” Machado said, referring to widespread criticism of the government’s earthquake response as slow and disorganized. “The country needs figures it can trust.”
The quakes have killed more than 2,295 people and injured over 11,000 others, according to the government, which has not offered updates on the dead and injured since Wednesday. Machado’s opposition movement has set up a digital database to locate the missing that currently lists over 36,000 people unaccounted for. Her party has mobilized volunteers to collect donations in Venezuela and solicited aid from the country’s vast diaspora.
