Twin earthquakes near Caracas kill at least 235, with toll expected to rise

At least 235 people were killed and more than 4,300 injured when two powerful earthquakes struck northern Venezuela within a single minute on Wednesday evening, toppling apartment blocks from the inland state of Yaracuy to the capital, Caracas, in the country's deadliest seismic disaster in more than a century. Officials warned the toll would keep climbing as rescuers reached buildings that had collapsed with residents still inside.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) logged a magnitude 7.2 tremor at about 6:04 p.m. local time, followed roughly 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 mainshock — a near-simultaneous pairing that seismologists call a "doublet." Both ruptured at shallow depth near the town of San Felipe in Yaracuy state, around 160 kilometres west of Caracas, sending violent shaking across the densely populated valleys of the north.

Venezuela's health minister, Carlos Alvarado, and the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, gave casualty figures that rose through the day from an initial 32 dead to 164, then 188 and at least 235. Authorities put the number of officially missing at 157, even as informal registries set up by frantic relatives filled with tens of thousands of names of people who could not be reached — totals that remain unverified. Foreign nationals were among the dead, according to official accounts.

A 39-second doublet, the strongest since 1900

The USGS said the magnitude 7.5 shock was the largest earthquake to strike Venezuela since 1900, when a 7.7 quake hit the country. Its predictive PAGER model, which estimates likely losses in the minutes after a rupture, indicated a high probability that fatalities would run into the thousands, with a substantial chance of exceeding 10,000 — a reflection of the shallow depth, the strength of the pair and the density of older concrete housing across the affected region. Venezuela's national seismic agency, Funvisis, monitored the sequence and the dozens of aftershocks that followed.

The two ruptures so close together left little time for anyone to react. In Caracas, residents described a deep roar and a violent, sustained sway before facades began to crack and fall.

The noise was like that of a locomotive, not to mention the dust.

That account came from Alejandro San Cristobal, a 60-year-old resident, speaking to Al Jazeera. Maria Gonzalez, 52, from the Chacao district, said she "grabbed onto the doorway and started to pray" as her building shook. Many residents spent the night in public squares, afraid to return indoors before engineers could check whether their homes were still sound.

Collapsed towers and a race through the rubble

The damage was concentrated in the capital and along the Caribbean coast. In Caracas, dozens of buildings came down, among them a reported 22-storey structure in the affluent Altamira district, with further collapses in Los Palos Grandes and El Paraíso. Authorities shut off the city's gas supply to guard against explosions as crews worked through debris by floodlight.

The coastal state of La Guaira, between the capital and the sea, was severely devastated. Simón Bolívar International Airport, Venezuela's main gateway, was damaged and flights were cancelled, complicating the arrival of relief. Acting president Delcy Rodríguez declared a state of emergency and mobilised the security forces, while rescuers — and in many places ordinary residents digging with their hands — searched for survivors trapped beneath pancaked floors.

An international relief effort, and a diplomatic thaw

The scale of the disaster drew offers of help from more than 40 countries. President Donald Trump pledged rapid US assistance, saying he had instructed federal agencies to "get ready to move quickly."

"We will be there for our new and great friends," Trump wrote, in a message notable for its warmth toward a government Washington had long treated as a pariah. The US State Department and USAID mobilised a disaster-assistance team, and American urban search-and-rescue units — including Virginia Task Force One and California Task Force Two — were dispatched. France sent some 85 rescue specialists, Switzerland around 80, and Chile a search-and-rescue team, while the United Nations moved to coordinate the wider response.

The American offer underscored how sharply relations have shifted in 2026. Nicolás Maduro was captured by US forces in January, after which Washington recognised Rodríguez's government and reopened its embassy in Caracas in late March. An acceptance of US aid that would have been unthinkable a year earlier is now part of the relief operation.

The view from Luxembourg

The disaster reached, quietly, into the Grand Duchy. Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs said 22 people with a Luxembourg registration are recorded as being in Venezuela. As of reporting, the ministry said, none had contacted its consular services to ask for help, and no Luxembourg nationals had registered their stay on the LamA (Lëtzebuerger am Ausland) platform, which lets citizens flag travel abroad so they can be reached in a crisis.

Luxembourg keeps no diplomatic mission in Venezuela and is represented in Caracas by the Royal Netherlands Embassy, which would handle any consular emergency involving a Luxembourg resident. Officials cautioned that the absence of LamA registrations does not mean no Luxembourgers are in the country — only that none had signalled their presence through the system.

With communications patchy across the worst-hit areas and the official missing list far smaller than the names piling up on informal registries, the human reckoning of the twin quakes was only beginning. Venezuelan officials said the figures were provisional and would rise as rescuers reached more of the collapsed buildings in the days ahead.