CARACAS, Venezuela — You can hear backhoes digging through concrete and twisted metal, as rescue workers call out into the wreckage.

“We are the rescue team. If you are alive please make any noise.”

A middle-aged man in a blue shirt looks on in desperation. He still has hope someone he knows on the sixth floor will be alive.

Across the street from another shattered building, Junior Laya and Jesus Gallardo sit on the shade, covered in dust.

“I have family members missing… my brother and some cousins,” Gallardo says. “We don’t know anything about them. We’ve been looking for them for four days.”

It is now four days since powerful twin earthquakes left parts of Venezuela in ruins.

Damaged buildings are seen three days after earthquakes struck in La Guaira, Venezuela, Saturday, June 27, 2026.

Matias Delacroix/AP

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Matias Delacroix/AP

On Saturday, the government said the death toll had reached 1,430, with nearly 3,500 injured. Those figures are expected to rise. Authorities say thousands remain missing, as the critical window to find survivors continues to narrow.

Cargo planes carrying emergency aid for earthquake victims are now beginning to land in Venezuela, after the main airport in the capital Caracas partially reopened to relief flights.

On the ground in La Guaira, a coastal state just north of Caracas, one of the areas closest to the earthquake’s epicenter, it’s utter devastation.

Buildings are pancaked, their floors stacked like decks of cards.

Dozens of people are digging through the rubble with whatever they can find—mostly small shovels and their bare hands. They are told someone is still inside, though it is not clear whether that person is alive or dead, or even who they are. Only their feet are visible.

Helicopters buzz in the sky.

People wait next to damaged structures, hoping to hear news of anyone who might get pulled from the rubble.

Andrea Peña is a 34-year-old resident of La Guaira, whose home was destroyed.

She’s under a tent, outside the debris of her 7-floor building, guarding shovels and hand saws to give to rescue workers when they shout for them.