The double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck Venezuela, caused by the Caribbean Plate sliding along the South American Plate, highlighted the country's structural vulnerability. Damage was concentrated primarily on the central coast, in the state of La Guaira, and to a lesser extent in the capital Caracas, in affluent areas such as Chacao and Altamira, where casualties were relatively few. Conversely, the coastal urban areas of Catia La Mar, Playa Grande, and Caraballeda suffered the most severe consequences, with a current toll of over 5,000 deaths, more than 16,000 injured, and many missing. Venezuela's main airport, including its runways, has been declared unusable, and the country's largest port has also been damaged. Provisional estimates indicate that over 850 large buildings have suffered irreparable structural damage, and approximately 200 housing complexes have completely collapsed, almost exclusively affecting the poorest segments of the population.
This is not the first catastrophic event to hit Venezuela's central coast in recent times. In 1999, less than a year after Chávez came to power, continuous torrential rains in mid-December saturated the mountain slopes on both sides, hitting the city of Caracas on one side and, more dramatically, the entire central coast on the other. Thousands of simultaneous landslides, gigantic mudflows, and rockfalls swept violently toward the sea, burying entire villages and causing between 10,000 and 30,000 deaths, with approximately 100,000 displaced. In this sense, the current disaster is substantially different in its genesis, but comparable in its effects and causes: in the first case, the disaster was largely predictable in terms of hydrogeological instability, and responsibility fell on the Fourth Republic (fundamentally Christian Democrat), whose political model, based on real estate speculation, had allowed decades of uncontrolled urbanization of riverbeds and steep or unstable areas, especially for tourism. In the case of the current disaster, although its predictability was relatively limited, its effects have been magnified by the urban planning management of the Fifth Republic over the last twenty years (Chavista government): the main similarity lies in the continued administrative irresponsibility, with both regimes ignoring the geological characteristics of the territory to favor the former's profit-driven agenda, and the latter's immediate political consensus. Indeed, it was precisely on the reconstruction of the towns destroyed in 1999 that the Chavista government relied to consolidate its power, responding to the housing demand of much of the poor population through the "Gran Misión Vivienda" (Great Living Mission). According to official figures, the "Gran Misión Vivienda" (Great Living Mission) built and delivered more than 5 million homes and apartments in communal buildings through agreements with friendly states, such as Turkey, without adequate geological surveys and, above all, without monitoring the materials used (the "cardboard houses," as they were called).
In any case, the government moved quickly after the earthquake, activating emergency services, the army, and the fire department, and involving all ministerial staff and the network of city councils. Doctors, nurses, NGOs, churches, and universities also responded immediately, which created some confusion and coordination problems, as many set up collection points for food, clothing, and medicine, even before the lists of essential goods were made public and the flow of supplies was organized. However, within a week, while people were still digging through the rubble in search of survivors, hundreds of camps for displaced people, coordinated by local and Caracas police, were set up, while part of the army patrolled the coastline. The international response was massive, with aid for the search for survivors and medical services arriving from various parts of the world or organized by the UN itself, in addition to numerous state and private donations. Unfortunately, the US financial blockade prevents the normal flow of funds for the purchase of medicines and even the import of heavy machinery needed to clear the rubble.
The United States government's intervention fits into this context. It must be said that it took action the day after the disaster, moving a military vessel equipped with helicopters from Panama. It also allocated $300 million in humanitarian aid, a modest amount, and it was drawn from Venezuelan oil revenues frozen in foreign accounts. These resources belong to the Venezuelan state, but control of which was taken away from the country after Maduro's kidnapping and the placing of Venezuelan oil exports under its "protection." Technicians and senior officials from Trump's administration also arrived, and are taking charge of reopening the country's main airport and, as far as is known, monitoring high-level Venezuelan government meetings and decisions, ensuring that the flow of oil to the US continues, given that the earthquake did not affect the extraction industry. The White House's political objective appears to be to take over the reconstruction effort, establishing a protectorate-style administration, particularly with regard to the economy, while attempting to normalize the local conflict. This strategy also includes Trump's ban on opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from returning to the country. This is intended to keep the current internal political balance frozen, allowing the US administration to directly negotiate territorial governance without conflict or uncomfortable local mediation outside the Chavista government. Indeed, the most extremist factions on the right are attempting to exploit the humanitarian crisis for purely electoral purposes through radio, private television, and digital channels, launching campaigns to discredit the work done so far by the Chavista government. This is intended to carve out a political role for themselves and accelerate the transition to power promised by Trump and Rubio through elections before the end of the year.
It is thus clear that both the causes of earthquakes and their consequences must be analyzed through complex interpretative models that, evidently based on the geological aspects of the phenomenon, take into account social, economic, political, and, above all, cultural levels derived from the strong relationships each community has with its territory, from which memory and identity are derived (the time marked by disasters, for example). The fundamental question to ask, and which will be explored in depth in the next issue of Sicilia Libertaria, concerns the very nature of disasters: are they natural events or structurally social and political processes?
Francisco López
https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/wp-content/uploads/luglioAgosto2026_compressed.pdf
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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