Inspiring stories of Venezuela quake survivors
A woman who sat up on a stretcher, waving, rescued 70 hours after devastating back-to-back earthquakes in Venezuela on June 24. A dog’s head peering up, through a crack in the concrete, five days on. A dust-coated father and son, rescued six days since the quake. A security guard seen drawing, surrounded by debris, a camera snaked down for rescuers to be in touch while they tunnelled through the rubble – Gil Flores held his nerve for eight days, waiting patiently inside a mound of concrete. And as each rescue was attempted, outside, the world waited, crowds stood, hanging on to hope. Almost 3,000 people are dead, over 11,000 injured, and Nasa images show nearly 59,000 buildings along the coast are damaged. And yet, people have survived.
It took 100 hours to free the security guard after establishing contact – survival is rare after the first 48 to 72 hours of a quake. Erasure is near-immediate. But, time and again, around the world, stories of survival, of people found alive days, even weeks, later have powered rescuers to persist to find more survivors. Science – tiny air pockets, access to water – explains some of the survival, human resilience, and tenacity of rescuers, the rest. What keeps everyone going is hope…the difference between finding one more survivor and calling off the search. Flip side? Where people aren’t identified, and there’s hope, there’s rarely closure.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rescue-workers-save-security-guard-from-venezuela-rubble/
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
