Rosmarily Aponte was in New York City on a video call with her sister in Venezuela when the earthquakes hit.

Ms. Aponte, 48, watched in horror as household items crashed to the floor of her sister’s apartment.

“I told her: ‘Get out! Get out of there!’” she said in an interview conducted in Spanish.

Her sister, Rosmary Aponte, 50, who lives in Maracay, a city west of Caracas, fled her 14th floor apartment. But as she raced down the stairs, the call dropped.

The back-to-back earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday left at least 920 people dead and injured 3,360, according to Venezuela’s government. Thousands of people are now homeless, and an unknown number are missing.

In the New York City metro area, where the population of Venezuelan immigrants has grown rapidly in recent years as the country fell into chaos, news of the devastating earthquakes caused shock and desperation as people tried again and again by text messages or phone calls to reach relatives and friends who live there.

Ms. Aponte, who worked as a bank manager in Venezuela and is now a manager at Perros y Vainas, a Venezuelan street food stand in Greeley Square, in Manhattan, cried as she waited for hours for news about her sister. It turned out that she had made it to safety and was OK, but her building was not. She and other residents weren’t allowed back inside.

Other New Yorkers remain uncertain about the fate of their relatives in Venezuela.

Jesús Mendoza, 23, a cashier at the food stand, said on Thursday that he arrived to work “with a heavy heart.” His cousin, Asyria Urbina, lives in the state of La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit areas. Ms. Urbina’s building collapsed in the earthquakes. No one has heard from her since.

“Being so far away, you feel helpless,” Mr. Mendoza said, speaking in Spanish.

Doris Marrero, 60, of Long Island has also felt powerless since learning that Constanza Caruso López, her cousin’s 23-year-old daughter, has been missing in La Guaira State, which she and her boyfriend recently arrived from Caracas for a quick getaway. The building where they had been staying was leveled.

Still, Ms. Marrero said, her relatives in Venezuela are holding out hope. They have posted her name and photo on the website Desaparecidos Terremoto Venezuela, which has become a repository of the missing.

“They don’t even want to think of the worst-case scenario,” Ms. Marrero said.

But that had become a reality for the cousin of Alejandro Parra, 43, a rideshare driver who lives on Long Island. His cousin’s 10-year-old daughter died, along with the girl’s grandmother, when the grandmother’s building in La Guaira collapsed. Mr. Parra’s wife and children, who live outside of Caracas, were safe.

As the scope of the tragedy began to sink in, the Venezuelan community in New York organized donation drop-off sites and fund-raising efforts in different parts of the city.

Jesus Aguais, a Venezuelan immigrant, said that his nonprofit, Aid for Life, which supports Latin American migrant families, was soliciting monetary donations via its website.

“This is very personal,” Mr. Aguais said. On Thursday afternoon he learned that a young man he knew in Venezuela who had previously worked for the nonprofit was reported missing. “I’m still in shock,” he said.

The nonprofit Healing Venezuela, which works to mitigate the country’s health crisis, is helping doctors on the front lines of the disaster get the supplies that they need, said Erick Rozo, a board member of the nonprofit’s U.S. arm.

Most of Mr. Rozo’s family lives in Venezuela. They are safe but have had to remain outside because their building was badly damaged. Shelter is “a luxury,” he said.

In a May report examining New York City’s “newest New Yorkers,” those born in Venezuela were among the top new immigrants. In 2023, the report said, there were more than 19,000 Venezuelans living in New York City who had arrived in 2010 or later.

Venezuela underwent one of the most severe economic collapses recorded outside of wartime, losing more than 70 percent of its economic production from 2012 to 2020, as a result of government mismanagement and corruption, according to “The Collapse of Venezuela” by the Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez. After so many years of tumult, with a devastated health care system and barely functioning basic services, the government’s ability to respond to the earthquake is greatly impaired.

“External help is going to have to flood the country,” said Rossanna Figuera, the founder of Perros y Vainas, the food stand in Greeley Square Park. “In the short term the prospects are very grim.”

Ms. Figuera, whose family members in Venezuela were all safely accounted for, is working to raise money for earthquake relief with Roberto Patiño, a Venezuelan social activist living in New York. He operates a nonprofit organization called Alimenta la Solidaridad, which has a long history of running soup kitchens and other projects in poor neighborhoods in Venezuela. Mr. Patiño said that a large number of the organization’s members, including workers and aid recipients, were missing.

Ms. Figuera said that customers at her restaurants would be able to make money donations when paying for their food or via a QR code that would be displayed at the register.

ChamolandiaNY, a food truck parked on Northern Boulevard in Queens, is soliciting relief donations that will be turned over to a foundation for shipment to Venezuela, said the owner, Helmer Gelves. As word of mouth spread, the items began trickling in: rice and a package of water bottles; a bag of corn flour used to make arepas.

“Right now all that matters is unity,” Mr. Gelves, 33, said in Spanish. “We have to come together.”

Diego Ramírez, 28, a waiter, stopped to get a Venezuelan-style hot dog at the food truck. Like many Venezuelans on Thursday, he wore an unmistakable look of distress.

He had spoken with his mother and sister, who live in Los Teques, outside of Caracas. Their apartment building was badly damaged, but they had nowhere else to go. Instead of evacuating, they were staying home and hoping for the best.

“I told my mom to stay calm, that she can rely on me,” Mr. Ramírez, who wore a Yankees cap, said in an interview in Spanish. “Even though I’m far away, I’m still here for her.”

Winnie Hu contributed reporting.