The death toll after two earthquakes struck Venezuela has risen to 589, with 2,980 people injured and thousands more reported missing.
The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 tremors struck approximately 160km west of Caracas on Wednesday, reports RTE.
A website created to track missing people and shared by opposition leaders from the politically polarised country listed more than 49,600 people as unaccounted for.
The country’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez said the government had decided to militarise the state of La Guaira following the earthquakes, reports RTE.
La Guaira, the coastal state adjoining Caracas and home to the nation’s main airport, was among the hardest-hit areas, with streams of volunteers heading down the Caracas-La Guaira highway with water, food and medicine.
“We lost everything,” said one man, who had lost both his home and business and was sleeping on the street with his wife and children, reports RTE.
“We hope help arrives quickly.”
Nine Portuguese and three Spanish nationals were killed in the earthquakes, the countries’ foreign ministries confirmed, reports RTE.
Spain’s foreign ministry said 99 Spanish citizens were unaccounted for.
Portugal’s foreign ministry said 56 of its citizens were missing or otherwise unaccounted for, reports RTE.
With foreign rescue teams arriving, firefighters, soldiers and distraught citizens combed through shattered buildings, some using bare hands and torches in places where power was down.
“He’s under the slabs and there’s no machinery to get him out,” said Yamileth Jimenez of her 19-year-old son trapped in the debris of their seven-storey apartment building in La Guaira city, reports RTE.
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Thousands of people are homeless in a nation already weakened by decades of economic and political turmoil.
The government confirmed 250 buildings had been damaged or destroyed, with at least eight hospitals, the Venezuelan Red Cross and the French embassy among buildings reported to have been badly damaged, reports RTE.
Nearly 7 million people could be affected, said the UN’s migration body, which was supplying emergency shelter and other relief supplies.
Near the epicentre in Moron, a seaside town in Carabobo state, houses crumpled and residents had no water or electricity, with families salvaging what they could including mattresses, televisions and washing machines, reports RTE.
Reuters journalists saw members of a “colectivo” — government-allied motorcycle groups long accused of harassing opposition supporters — assisting with rescue efforts.
Nations around the world pledged support, even some that had opposed Venezuela during decades of international isolation, political repression and economic deterioration under the ruling Socialist Party, reports RTE.
Ms Rodriguez, who took over when the US captured former leader Nicolas Maduro in January, thanked both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin for their efforts.
The US has eased sanctions to allow earthquake aid that would otherwise be prohibited, reports RTE.
Mr Trump said the US was “ready, willing and able to help.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington would send rescue teams while the Pentagon would help with logistics and support Caracas’s damaged airport, reports RTE.
Ms Rodriguez posted footage of Mexican soldiers and sniffer dogs arriving at the international airport at La Guaira, which was open only to state and military flights, with other aid coming in via airports in the cities of Maracay and Valencia.
UN aid chief Tom Fletcher said the organisation was coordinating international rescue teams and that “a massive collective effort” would be needed in a country where 8 million people required humanitarian assistance before the earthquake, reports RTE.
“The first hours are critical to saving lives,” said Emergency Director for the UN’s Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization Ciro Ugarte, adding that hospitals were treating scores of people with broken bones and burns, reports RTE.
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