Venezuela Quake Death Toll Hits 3,342 as Eliezer Alfonzo Finds Wife, Daughter Dead
Updated
Updated · EL PAÍS USA · Jul 6
Venezuela Quake Death Toll Hits 3,342 as Eliezer Alfonzo Finds Wife, Daughter Dead
3 articles · Updated · EL PAÍS USA · Jul 6
Summary
Sunday’s recovery in La Guaira ended Eliezer Alfonzo’s 10-day search when rescuers found the bodies of his wife Patricia and 16-year-old daughter Eliana in the rubble of the collapsed Eduard’s Suites Hotel.
10 days after the June 24 twin earthquakes, Alfonzo had assembled a private rescue camp with 50 men, five heavy machines and miners he hired himself, paying about $1,200 a day per machine to keep digging.
A Yorkshire terrier pulled alive from the debris on Saturday had briefly sustained hopes of more survivors, but Alfonzo’s family said official help was absent at first and they directed excavators themselves.
The disaster’s official toll rose to 3,342 dead, with 16,740 injured, 6,462 rescued alive and 17,345 left homeless.
La Guaira has borne the brunt of the quake damage, accounting for eight in 10 total building collapses and exposing how families with money and contacts can search faster than most victims.