An 'incalculable' number of corpses are in Venezuela's earthquake zone. People feel abandoned

Inside Venezuela anger and desperation are rising. The number of corpses is 'incalculable' Fri 3 Jul 2026 at 4:43am Trapped under the rubble with a slab of concrete pinning him down, Josmer Becerra tried to move and then heard a scream. It was his girlfriend on the floor below pleading for help because she couldn't breathe. "I got very nervous and started digging with my bare hands to get her air so she could breathe," Mr Becerra told 7.30. He managed to make a little hole beneath him as she gasped for air. He then kept digging down to her waist and freed his legs from the debris that was trapping them both. The two were on the 12th floor of an apartment complex in Caraballeda, a Venezuelan coastal town in ruins after the twin earthquakes that have left around 11,000 injured. Nearly 50,000 people are still unaccounted-for. Mr Becerra, 21, said it was pitch black after the tremor crushed his building. Luckily, he found a small hammer nearby and his phone's torch was still working. For seven hours, in pain and darkness he chipped away at the remains of his home to escape. A wall now separates him and his partner in a Caracas hospital as they lay in bed, while doctors tend to their injuries. "I have a hole in my chest where I was hurt with a steel beam and in my left leg I have two wounds that need attention,"Mr Becerra said. Covered in scratches he recalls how he hurt his right ankle while removing the debris to free his girlfriend. "I never thought in my life I'd have to live through a moment like this," he said. "I guess as time moves on, we will learn how to deal with this." Pushed to the brink The impoverished nation's health system has been pushed to the brink by this disaster. Thirty-eight hospitals across the country were damaged or structurally compromised by the tremors. Hospital Perez de Leon was not structurally impacted by the disaster so it received a large number of injured survivors. Director Carlos Garcia says in his 27 years as a doctor he has never seen a health emergency like it. "It was something that we are not prepared for really because everything happened in seconds, minutes," Dr Garcia said. He says hs hospital is typically well prepared but medical supplies are running low and they need painkillers, IV solutions, CPR equipment and operating tools. "The challenge to come will be much longer … now we will face the emotional damage that is much worse." Near to the capital of Caracas the ocean-side city of Catia La Mar is uninhabitable. It is located in the state of La Guaira which is one of the worst affected areas. Electricity and gas have been shut off and for days there was no phone reception. 'Incalculable' number of corpses A week on from the tragedy and dozens of volunteers are trying to recover residents from apartment complexes. Some are still holding on to a sliver of hope for miracles. Marcos Sousa's 16-year-old son is in one of those buildings. When the earthquakes hit he drove up to Catia La Mar and showed anyone he could photos of his boy, in the hope that they had seen his son. Every day he has been going into the wreckage to search. "We practically don't sleep, the hours go by and we spend between 4-6 hours trying to rescue a single body, sometimes a full day trying to recover one person," Mr Sousa told 7.30. "I have personally extracted between 8-10 corpses but haven't been able to get my son." The 42-year-old says the Venezuelan government hasn't helped but rather has hindered efforts to find those trapped in the rubble. "They have showed up here, police forces, threatening that they want to put us in jail because we don't follow the protocols for rescue," he alleged. Much of the search and rescue in the city has been conducted by volunteers and ordinary Venezuelans. Nestor Moreno is living in a tent, near to a decimated apartment complex. He doesn't live in the area so wants to be close by so he can work from dawn till dusk. He told 7.30 that he has rescued 10 people but says the "number of corpses is incalculable". Volunteers like him are using shovels, pickaxes and their bare hands to try and rescue and recover but with these limited tools there is only so much they can do. People in Catia La Mar have been pleading for more heavy machinery to remove the concrete slabs and rubble that prevent them from searching further. There is also growing anger towards the government's response to one of the worst disasters in Venezuela's history. "Do you see the government here? What you are seeing is me [and other volunteers]," Mr Moreno said. Four local police officers have been arrested over alleged looting after the earthquakes. Mr Sousa says their actions are indicative of authorities who do not care. "I have seen officers in structures looking [for] what's left [in] the apartments," Mr Sousa said. "These people feed off our suffering; it is their fuel. It is the fuel of this ghoulish government we have and it's very saddening." Acting President Delcy Rodriguez says her government has accepted help from dozens of countries and is working tirelessly at all levels to "provide protection, care and certainty" for survivors. Temporary camps have been set up for thousands of people who have been displaced. Medical treatment, food and even entertainment are being offered to those living in tent cities. "Our priority is protecting the lives of those who survived, of the families currently in temporary camps and of those who still need a safe place," Ms Rodriguez said. However there have been cases where international aid workers and the media have been blocked from entering some of the worst affected areas. A military checkpoint has been set up on highway heading into La Guaira from the capital Caracas. "I really want the world to know what's really going on here,"Mr Sousa said. "The government is supposed to support us in this situation but it's the opposite. I don't understand why they want to hurt us so much." Living among the 16,000 homeless Preliminary data from NASA estimates close to 60,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed across Venezuela. At least 2,295 people are reported to have died. Many Venezuelans believe they will never know the real death toll. Some buildings are already being demolished without being fully searched because authorities have deemed the risk too high to investigate properly. This disaster presents more long-term challenges for a country that was already in the midst of humanitarian, economic, and political crises. The Venezuelan government has reported that 16,000 people are now homeless. Luzmarina Pirela is living in a tent with nine members of her family including her baby grandchild. The family was renting in Caracas when its home was destroyed. "At the beginning we were sleeping on the sidewalk on the streets outdoors for a few days," she said. Her family moved to Caracas from a regional province searching for employment and a better life. Now they are living in a park with hundreds of others displaced people. "I don't want to be here, I feel horrible and we don't know what to do because we have no house." Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV