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A volunteer rescuer holds a cat after pulling it out from under the rubble of a building in Venezuela. [Juan Barreto, AFP]

A weakened cat was pulled from under the rubble of a collapsed residential complex in Venezuela on Saturday in what a rescuer described as a "ray of hope" in the aftermath of deadly earthquakes.

More than 5,100 people were killed when back-to-back quakes struck the South American nation on June 24, with the coastal state of La Guaira hit hardest.

Volunteer rescue worker Andres Carvajal said he spotted the cat during a search in a La Guaira housing complex that had been reduced to rubble.