Venezuelan Capital Shaken: Residents Grapple With Back‑to‑Back Earthquakes

Journalist Nicole Kolster was at home in Caracas when her apartment started shaking violently. “I saw the windows moving, and the only thing I could do was to get between the front door and a stone wall… to try to protect myself,” she recounted.

Two earthquakes struck the city seconds apart on Wednesday – the first at a magnitude of 7.2 and the second at 7.5. Photos show collapsed buildings and people gathered on the streets, but the number of casualties and full extent of the damage are still unknown.

“It’s the strongest quake I’ve ever felt in my life,” Kolster told BBC Mundo. “It was so strong that I thought the building was going to fall on top of me.”

Kolster stayed wedged between the front door and the stone wall in her seventh‑storey apartment “for quite a while” before hearing neighbours calling people to evacuate. An hour after the quake, everyone was still outside, waiting for safety in case there was another aftershock.

Despite it being a weekday, many people were at home as the quakes hit on a national holiday commemorating the 1821 Battle of Carabobo. Photos and videos emerging from the affected areas show people in tears and others embracing out on the streets. “There are people who are very sad, powerless because they couldn’t get their pets out,” Kolster says. “Others tried to get their cars out of the building basements, fearing an aftershock might make things worse.” Calls for help could be heard from the rubble of a collapsed building nearby.

Maria Elise, another Palos Grandes resident, reports that the tremors cracked some walls in her apartment. “There are fallen utility poles outside, we have no electricity, no signal,” she told BBC Mundo.

This is not the first time the Venezuelan capital has been hit by a major earthquake. In 1967, a 6.6‑magnitude quake struck Caracas and killed more than 200 people, destroying buildings in Palos Grandes and the upper‑class area of Altamira. But the ones today felt worse, according to some residents who had experienced the 1967 quake. “There was a very loud crash. Things fell in the house, jugs inside the refrigerator. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said Coro Martinez, a 56‑year‑old resident in eastern Caracas. Eighty‑year‑old pensioner Maria Romero said, “This earthquake was horrible, even worse than the one in 1967.”