Venezuelan civilians lead quake rescues as military faces looting accusations

By Julia Symmes Cobb, Sarah Kinosian and Cassandra Garrison

LA GUAIRA, Venezuela, July 1 (Reuters) — Most of the time, Alexander Delgado is a gym teacher at a school in Aragua, a central Venezuelan state. But for the past week, he has been coordinating a makeshift rescue crew made up of neighbors and volunteers from other states. They have been digging through the rubble of a public housing complex, searching for survivors of the back-to-back earthquakes that devastated coastal areas and parts of Caracas.

Citizens like Delgado — armed with little more than shovels, ropes and bare hands — have tried to fill the gap left by what they describe as a slow and insufficient government response to the quakes, the most powerful to hit the country in a century.

They also say they are battling interference from some members of the Venezuelan military and police, who they claim have blocked aid, intercepting donations and even looting collapsed buildings.

Venezuela's Ministry of Communications, which handles media inquiries for the security forces, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senior officials have attributed the growing public anger — and reports of soldiers involved in looting and slow aid distribution — to misinformation. They have urged the public to ignore what they call “manipulation strategies on social networks” and instead rely on official information.

Delgado has no formal rescue training beyond basic first aid he learned at work. He traveled to La Guaira, the hardest-hit state, the day after the tremors to offer help. “You see the firefighters, the Mexican rescue team Los Topos, but you don't see the state itself,” he said.

His team has spent five days shifting rubble under the Caribbean sun, listening for signs of life. Local volunteers bring water, masks, ice and knowledge of the eight-tower Hugo Chavez housing complex, six of whose towers are now piles of debris.

By Tuesday, six days after the quakes, two international rescue teams and some local firefighters were on site, as well as one truck from the country's forensic service. But heavy equipment was still missing, Delgado said. That afternoon, his crew uncovered the body of a woman lying on her side between a concrete slab and other debris. They halted work to wait for the forensic team to remove her.

‘Making do with almost nothing’

The backlash over the government's response comes as acting President Delcy Rodriguez tries to consolidate her power, months after her predecessor Nicolás Maduro was ousted in January.

“Delcy and company have been in charge for 26 years and they only have one script,” said Jimmy Story, U.S. ambassador to Venezuela until 2023. “They take credit for anything positive, push blame for everything negative, and try to control the narrative.”

President Donald Trump has praised the U.S. relationship with Rodriguez, and American companies have shown interest in Venezuelan assets from oil to gold. The U.S. Embassy's chargé d'affaires, John Barrett, vouched for Rodriguez's handling of the disaster, telling Univision on Monday that he had “a great deal of confidence” in local authorities.

Volunteers on the ground disagreed. “I would like more presence from public entities, who are supposed to be responsible for this. But in the end, we are used to making do with almost nothing,” said Mijaed Diaz, a veterinarian who joined volunteers from a university. She clambered over the debris of two towers, looking for body bags for four people who had just been pulled out.

After initially thanking civilian volunteers, the government on Friday restricted public access to La Guaira, angering those trying to help find survivors. One government employee stationed at a checkpoint in La Guaira on Sunday told Reuters they witnessed police officers and soldiers commandeer aid from three trucks carrying supplies, bragging about what they had managed to “score.”

Frustration on social media

The same employee, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said they saw officers filming themselves with shovels as if they were helping rescue efforts, then abruptly leaving. Some Venezuelans have vented their frustration on social media, sharing videos that appear to show security officials picking through destruction and taking clothes, appliances, and cash.

Reuters could not independently verify the videos' authenticity. However, the Interior Ministry said late Tuesday that four crime scene police officers had been detained and removed from their jobs, and will be investigated for “appropriating financial assets acquired amid the ruins.” It added that most police have been acting transparently.

Other social media posts show military members standing by with weapons while locals and foreign rescue teams rush to find survivors. Still, some residents say military and police personnel have been actively helping. One resident told Reuters she saw soldiers removing belongings from buildings at the request of residents, while police and firefighters in Chacao, a wealthy Caracas neighborhood, have been working around the clock on humanitarian requests, according to Reuters witnesses.

Building on citizen-led rescue efforts, some Venezuelan nonprofits whose work had been heavily restricted under 2024 government limits on civil society have begun to reemerge publicly to assist survivors.

‘They don't help anyone’

“We are operating and trying to show, once again, that our work is about supporting communities and not something for which we should be persecuted,” said Roberto Patino, founder of NGO Alimenta La Solidaridad, which runs community kitchens. Since the disaster, the group has focused on delivering food, medicine, equipment and Starlink internet antennas to the hardest-hit communities.

The United Nations Development Programme estimates the quakes caused $6.7 billion in damage. The U.S. has pledged $350 million, sent rescue teams and deployed the military to repair the airport. But some observers point to billions of dollars from oil sales sitting in a U.S.-controlled account.

“While the response has been robust, it also calls into question the transparency over the oil fund,” said former ambassador Story. “Will these funds be released for the disaster response?”

Miguel Poleo, part of Delgado's civilian rescue crew, came to Los Cocos looking for his stepdaughter, her husband and their son. “We told them two days ago that there are survivors, that they are knocking, and nothing,” he said of the government. “They don't help anyone.”

(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in La Guaira and Cassandra Garrison and Sarah Kinosian in Mexico City; Editing by Christian Plumb and Lincoln Feast)