Thursday, July 23rd 2026 - 22:37 UTC
The disaster struck a country with a poverty rate above 76% and an economy that contracted sharply over the past decade, in a period marked by US sanctions
The twin earthquakes that struck northern Venezuela on June 24 caused an estimated $19.6 billion in direct physical damage, according to a preliminary assessment published on Thursday by the World Bank. The figure is equivalent to about 18% of the country's gross domestic product, based on International Monetary Fund data.
The report, produced using the institution's rapid damage estimation methodology, attributes 47% of the losses to residential buildings, 27% to infrastructure, and 26% to non-residential buildings. La Guaira state and the Capital District, which includes Caracas, account for roughly half of the total impact. In La Guaira, the hardest-hit area, the institution estimates that one in five homes was destroyed.
The estimate does not include the costs of rebuilding with structural improvements or of debris removal, which the World Bank says could amount to between two and two and a half times the replacement value, bringing the total bill to close to $50 billion. An early United Nations assessment, released a week after the quakes, had put direct damage at $37 billion.
