“The stench is horrible here. But I’m still trying because I’m looking for my uncle. We cannot just stand by idly when there’s the possibility that there might be people alive under the rubble,” says William Rodrigues. “Help arrived very late in most places, and in some, it has still not arrived.”
While the police were present near the complex, they were not engaging or helping in rescue efforts.
Sixty-year-old Juan Avendo – who lives across the road from Bello Horizonte – and whose home has also been destroyed says: “We could hear the screams and shouts of people trapped under the rubble. So we tried to help them ourselves, using our bare hands, clawing through the debris with our nails.”
He and his nephew Enyer Musics described how they managed to pull one woman out alive.
“We heard her screaming in the night. But it was dark and we couldn’t do anything. So the next morning we went and tried to find her. First we were able to pass her a bottle of water. And then we worked to pull her out,” he says.
The first official rescue team – Venezuelan firefighters – arrived on Friday, nearly two days after the earthquake struck. Teams from El Salvador and the US also helped out. A few more survivors were found, and then on Sunday the operation was called off.
Juan estimates that hundreds are likely lying dead under the debris.
It’s possible that their bodies might never be found, and that we might never know the true scale of this disaster.
Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar, Maria Ines Calderon and Sanjay Ganguly.
