Sixteen days after twin earthquakes struck Venezuela’s northwest coast and capital region on June 24, killing thousands and reducing vast swathes of La Guaira and Caracas to rubble, the phase of the disaster defined by search and rescue has ended. The phase now beginning is, in the judgement of the Pan American Health Organisation, potentially more dangerous: a sustained public health crisis driven by 18,000 homeless survivors living in overcrowded shelters with inadequate water and sanitation, a healthcare system that was already on the edge of collapse before the quakes, and disease dynamics that take weeks to manifest and months to control.
The Latest Numbers
The death toll from Venezuela’s twin earthquakes has risen to 3,889, according to figures released by top lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez on Thursday, July 9. The latest tally puts the number of injured in the June 24 quakes at 16,740, and the number of homeless at 17,907.
At least 12,800 people were staying in 80 shelters across Caracas and La Guaira, the coastal regions most directly impacted by the earthquake. The gap between the official homeless figure — 17,907 — and the shelter population — 12,800 — reflects the thousands of people sleeping in the open, in damaged buildings considered too unsafe to demolish and too dangerous to occupy, or in informal arrangements with relatives, neighbours and churches that do not appear in official shelter counts.
The confirmed death toll of 3,889 is expected to continue rising significantly. Linda Hornisberger of REDOG, a Swiss search-and-rescue group, suspected that most of the missing were already dead. Tens of thousands of people who were reported missing in the immediate aftermath have not been found, and the condition of La Guaira — where 80% of buildings collapsed — makes the possibility of survivors among the missing increasingly remote as the days accumulate.
What PAHO Is Warning
The biggest health risks include interruptions to regular medical care, crowded shelters and lack of access to clean water, the head of the Pan American Health Organization said.
PAHO director Jarbas Barbosa said: “In the coming weeks, the greatest health risks may stem not only from injuries caused by the earthquakes, but also from disruptions to health services, overcrowded conditions, deficiencies in water and sanitation and reduced access to vaccination and routine healthcare.”
He emphasized that vaccine access is a priority, and noted that Venezuela’s coverage indicators were low even before the quakes. People now living in more than 80 temporary shelters are especially at risk for outbreaks. PAHO is working with the government to incorporate field hospitals and shelters into an early warning system, focusing on diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections, febrile syndromes and vaccine-preventable illness.
Reports of health concerns are already on the rise. “There’s been lots of reports among the population here with diarrhoea and other diseases,” said Al Jazeera’s correspondent Teresa Bo, reporting last week from a shelter site in the region of La Guaira.
The Healthcare System That Was Already Failing
Venezuela’s health system has deteriorated significantly after years of economic crisis, contributing to a lack of care available immediately after the quake, said Ciro Ugarte, PAHO’s director for health emergencies.
Before the earthquakes, Venezuela’s healthcare infrastructure was already operating well below the capacity needed to serve its population. Years of economic crisis, hyperinflation, sanctions and government mismanagement had depleted hospital supplies, driven away medical professionals through emigration and left the country without the pharmaceutical and equipment supply chains needed to maintain basic medical functions. Neonatal mortality rates had risen. Malaria and other vaccine-preventable diseases had reappeared in regions where they had previously been eliminated.
The earthquake has added 3,889 confirmed deaths, 16,740 injuries and the displacement of nearly 18,000 people onto a healthcare system that was already stretched to its functional limits. The combination is what PAHO’s director characterises when he warns that the coming weeks may prove deadlier than the quake itself — not because the earthquake’s immediate violence continues, but because the slow violence of disease, malnutrition, contaminated water and untreated injury in the absence of functional healthcare is now the dominant threat.
La Guaira’s Specific Catastrophe
The Northern State of Guaira is especially critically affected. La Guaira — Venezuela’s coastal state north of Caracas, home to the country’s main airport and primary seaport — bore the brunt of the structural damage. The concentration of collapsed buildings in a state of 300,000 people, combined with the disruption to the airport and port that serves as Venezuela’s primary gateway for humanitarian supplies, has created a logistical and public health emergency that is among the most severe in Latin American disaster history.
In La Guaira on Monday, witnesses told Reuters that they saw trucks and forensic workers transporting coffins while machinery dug trenches in an open area marked by white crosses where authorities were conducting mass burials. Mass burials — a standard public health response to large numbers of earthquake dead when individual burial is not possible — reduce the disease risk from decomposing remains but carry profound cultural and psychological weight for communities that observe specific burial traditions.
The International Response — What Is Working and What Is Not
28 countries across the world are providing assistance in the form of donations, teams of search and rescue experts, logistics, and management of water and sanitation. The US committed more than $150 million in initial aid and was preparing an additional nine-figure package. The IMF provided $200 million in emergency reconstruction funding.
But the physical delivery of humanitarian supplies remains constrained by the ongoing closure of Simón Bolívar International Airport and the damage to La Guaira’s port. Military logistics assets have been used to supplement civilian delivery, but the volumes of water purification equipment, medical supplies, shelter materials and food required to serve 18,000 displaced people in 80 overcrowded shelters exceed what military logistics can readily deliver at scale.
Experts have warned of a widening health crisis as thousands of displaced Venezuelans sleep in crowded temporary shelters or outside without access to clean water. Thousands have untreated injuries and infectious diseases, with the country’s healthcare system struggling to cope. “The issue we foresee just around the corner is the infections that patients who have been exposed to the disaster for the longest time might bring,” said Eugenio Cova, the head of the trauma unit at Hospital Jose Gregorio Hernandez in Caracas.
The transition from the earthquake’s acute phase to its chronic public health consequences is the moment at which international attention typically wanes and donor fatigue sets in. For Venezuela — already a country that commanded inadequate international support for its pre-earthquake humanitarian needs — the risk that the world moves on before the disease crisis peaks is real and serious.
