The Playa Grande baseball stadium on Venezuela’s central coast has transformed into a critical emergency shelter following the devastating 24 June earthquakes.
Authorities have declared seven days of national mourning. The disaster has claimed at least 2,295 lives, injured 11,256, and forced thousands into 14 displacement camps in La Guaira alone.
Daniela Jaramillo sought refuge there with her husband, father, and five children after sleeping rough for two nights. She described gripping her children inside a hallway as their walls crumbled. When the shaking stopped, they fled across the street only for gas canisters to explode. “Everything blew up,” her father recounted.
“Thank God we had no loss of life,” Ms. Jaramillo said, while acknowledging neighbors still remain trapped under rubble.
International support is surging. The US contributed $100 million to the UN Venezuela Humanitarian Fund, supplementing the UN’s $15 million emergency release. Fifty-one international rescue teams with 2,276 specialists and 165 dogs remain deployed.
Vanessa May, head of the UN humanitarian affairs office for Venezuela, confirmed search operations are still pulling survivors from the wreckage. The World Food Programme has already supplied ready-to-eat rations to 2,000 people, with a communal kitchen planned at the stadium.
Conditions remain difficult. Recent rains flooded tents, destroying salvaged belongings. Yet amid the hardship, the Jaramillo family’s rescued dog gave birth to five healthy puppies inside the camp.
“There are still people missing,” Ms. Jaramillo stated, as families brace for another night under canvas.