Man rescued alive from collapsed mall

Security guard survives nearly eight days after Venezuela earthquakes

CATIA LA MAR, VENEZUELA:

A 44-year-old security guard was pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed shopping centre in Venezuela on Thursday, almost eight days after two powerful earthquakes devastated the country's northern coast, in a dramatic rescue that offered a rare moment of hope amid the disaster.

Hernan Alberto Gil was rescued from the ruins of the nine-storey Galerias Playa Grande shopping centre in La Guaira state, where he had been trapped since twin earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 struck less than a minute apart last week.

The operation, led by search and rescue teams from El Salvador and Chile, began on Monday and lasted around 70 hours. Rescuers managed to keep Gil alive by supplying him with water through tubing while carefully excavating two separate tunnels to reach him because of the unstable structure.

Gil was carried from the rubble on a stretcher to waiting applause from rescuers and onlookers before being taken away by ambulance. Chile's firefighting service said he was in good condition.

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said the rescue was made possible through the combined efforts of teams from Chile, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela and El Salvador, which worked together to remove debris, stabilise the damaged building and create a safe route to the trapped survivor.

The earthquakes have claimed 2,295 lives, according to government figures released on Wednesday, while thousands remain unaccounted for. An unofficial but widely used online register listed about 38,600 people as still missing on Thursday, down from nearly 60,000 in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

A United Nations envoy said this week that 10,000 body bags were being procured for Venezuela, while the US Geological Survey has estimated that the eventual death toll could exceed 10,000.

Despite a heavy security presence in the affected areas, much of the rescue and relief effort has been driven by civilians, many of them volunteers. Residents have spent days digging through collapsed buildings with shovels, pickaxes and their bare hands alongside firefighters, civil protection personnel, foreign rescue teams and medical volunteers.

While some international teams, including those from Germany and Switzerland, have completed their missions, rescuers from more than a dozen countries remain in Venezuela as the search for survivors continues.