Venezuelan Families Bury 1,400 Earthquake Victims in Caracas as Death Toll Comes Into Focus
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jun 29
Venezuelan Families Bury 1,400 Earthquake Victims in Caracas as Death Toll Comes Into Focus
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jun 29
Summary
More than 1,400 people killed in Venezuela’s deadliest earthquake in over a century began to be buried over the weekend, with funerals spreading across Caracas.
Hundreds of relatives and friends gathered Sunday at a sprawling mountainside cemetery overlooking the capital, where packed chapels rotated mourners through dozens of services.
Individual losses sharpened the scale of the disaster, including a 26-year-old beauty pageant hopeful, a mother found shielding her 6- and 12-year-old sons, and a man deported from the United States hours before the quake.
Bodies trapped for days in the rubble left a stench over burial grounds, underscoring both the violence of the quake and the slow recovery still facing grieving families.