Volunteer Miguel Baez searches for missing family in Venezuela quake rubble

A double earthquake struck the coastal state of La Guaira, Venezuela, on 24 June with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, killing about 4,500 people and leaving thousands missing.

Thirty‑two‑year‑old former trader Miguel Baez has been working without training as a volunteer rescuer in the wreckage of a 12‑storey public housing complex in the Caraballeda sector. He says, “I want to stay here until the end,” hoping to find his mother Solangel, brother Héctor and niece Susej so they can receive a proper burial. In the three weeks since the disaster, Baez has recovered personal items such as a guitar and a viola, but the bodies of his relatives remain unrecovered.

Baez describes severe psychological stress, describing the experience as “trauma” and noting sleeplessness in donated tents while heavy machinery clears debris. International rescue teams and search dogs from Brazil, the United States, Mexico, Honduras and others have also been deployed, yet no living victims have been found and only the remains of a young girl were recovered recently.