L.A.-Backed Rescue Team Pulls Venezuela Guard Alive After 8 Days Under 100 Tons of Rubble
Updated
Updated · Los Angeles Times · Jul 5
L.A.-Backed Rescue Team Pulls Venezuela Guard Alive After 8 Days Under 100 Tons of Rubble
3 articles · Updated · Los Angeles Times · Jul 5
Summary
Hernán Alberto Gil Flores was pulled alive from a collapsed La Guaira shopping center after eight days trapped in a protected void beneath more than 100 tons of debris.
About 100 rescuers from half a dozen countries — including a 70-plus-member Los Angeles County contingent — used hand tools, buckets and reinforced tunnels because heavy machinery risked triggering another collapse.
Costa Rican crews detected signs of life on June 28, Chilean specialists confirmed Gil's location with radar, sonar and a camera, and rescuers kept him alive with water, protein shakes, medicine and light.
The rescue offered a rare lift in a disaster that Venezuela says has killed 2,954 people, injured 16,592 and left thousands still missing after the twin June 24 earthquakes.
Some 3,000 emergency personnel from roughly two dozen nations are now in Venezuela, underscoring how multinational urban search-and-rescue networks have become central to major quake response.