18-day-old babies, miracle puppies: Hope amid Venezuela's heartbreak

Six stories of hope and survival from Venezuela's twin quake recovery Sun 5 Jul 2026 at 2:04pm In 2026, upheaval has been a constant in the lives of Venezuelans. First, the nation was dragged into political chaos when the US seized then-president Nicolás Maduro in a surprise military raid. Now, it has been decimated by twin quakes. The death toll from last week's magnitude-7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes is nearing 3,000. Tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted-for for, and more than 16,000 have been left homeless. For those who survive, the battle for food and water is like a "cockfight" while fears of disease outbreaks are also rising. Yet, amongst the rubble and ruins, stories of miraculous survival somehow continue to emerge. From families reunited to bittersweet escapes, here are five stories of hope from Venezuela. Venezuela's youngest survivor Dayana Patiño was washing up in her eighth-floor apartment in La Guaira when the earthquakes hit. In her arms was 18-day-old Juan David Trujillo. She had grabbed her son, she told BBC, after thinking it was "only a light tremor". Instead, she sank into the collapsing building, and was crushed by furniture. For 32 hours, Dayana held onto her baby and saved her cries until someone could hear her. Her brother eventually came to her aid, with rescuers sliding a pipe through the rubble to give her water. And while Dayana's legs were injured, little Juan only suffered minor injuries. "The one who gave me the strength not to fall into despair was my son," she told US's ABC News. "I kept saying, 'As long as he was alive, I was going to be alive'." Video of the pair's rescue also showed Juan's father, Gerson Trujillo, in total disbelief. "When I saw him, I felt like I was born again," he told reporters. Miracle puppies and hundreds of rescue dogs Dog is man's best friend and in Venezuela's earthquake aftermath, a reason to keep digging. El Salvadoran rescuers worked for five hours to rescue puppy Giselle from the remains of a residential Caraballeda building. The puppy can be seen licking her rescuers before being met with some well-deserved belly rubs. Rescuers say they are continuing to look for her owner. Meanwhile, after eight days, six-year-old Buddy was also rescued. His owner, Gabriela Alves, had been frantically searching since June 24. She kept returning to the ruins every other day, calling his name into the silence. Loading...She nearly lost all hope but heard a faint, distant bark when she went back to salvage clothes from the debris. Peering through a narrow crack in the shattered concrete, she spotted a dust-covered white ear and screamed for help. "Everything was crushed, everything, everything," she told AP. "So it's a miracle. It's a miracle that he is alive." Apart from some weakness and dehydration, the pup survived without severe injuries. There have been more than 130 rescue dogs helping the rescue efforts. They included border collie Tsunami, who worked tirelessly alongside his handler to find at least 13 people under rubble. Spain's Nala and Britain's Millie, also joined the search. Loading...A smile among the rubble In response to a slow and inadequate government response, many Venezuelans have relied on each other to survive. In one case, members of the youth wing of Venezuela's socialist party — themselves largely homeless — have designed a digital system to register and shelter residents after the disaster. Other community members have also used their bare hands to dig out survivors. This was the case in the rescue of 12-year-old Fabiana, with her family and search teams spending seven hours on June 26 to retrieve her. The young girl's smile through a small hole in the rubble was re-shared across the globe — with many struck by how calm the young girl appeared. Pulled from the wreckage, Fabiana was met with a loud, exhausted cheer. "You are strong, you are brave," her rescuers told her, as she was taken away for medical evaluation. The security guard who survived eight days under rubble It had been more than three days since rescuers first heard the faint cry of Hernán Alberto Gil Flores, 43, beneath rubble. Eight days since the twin quakes first occurred. Yet, it would take eight days and a rescue mission that lasted more than 100 hours to finally free the security guard. Teams from around the world helped inch towards Gil Flores, who had been working a night shift at the Galerías Playa Grande in La Guaira when the building collapsed. Rescuers said it appeared the basement had collapsed and formed a shell around Gil Flores, creating a vital pocket of air. It was a Costa Rican Red Cross member, Allan Madrigal, who first heard the security guard's cries. "It was an emotional moment," he told the BBC, explaining that at first he had not trusted his own ears and asked a colleague to confirm that he "wasn't just imagining it". A camera and fluid were fed into the rubble to Gil Flores, who can be seen drawing on debris to keep occupied. Loading...His rescue also faced several false starts after the first tunnel was found not secure enough for a rescue. María Paz Campos, a veteran firefighter from Chile, talked him through the entire operation and kept him calm during the final excruciating hours on Thursday, local time. Gil Flores's sole message for rescuers was to not tell his wife he was alive — in case he did not make it. A wife who had experienced "days of great sorrow" before this ultimate blessing. "When I found out that he was alive I saw a ray of sunshine," she told reporters. Toddler retrieved after six days Young Klieber Moran was the only reported survivor on day six of rescue efforts. The three-year-old was pulled from the Los Corales Garden 1 building in La Guaira by Jordanian rescuers. After being extracted, he received first aid and was immediately taken to hospital, the Jordanian civil defence said in a statement. Rescuers were seen wiping the boy's face with tissues and tucking him in with a blanket into an ambulance. He has since been taken in by his aunty, as the BBC reported. When the two were reunited, Kleiber looked at his 23-year-old aunt, Andreína Sarmiento, and immediately said "she Auntie". She continues to hold out hope her sister is found too. "It hurts me a lot because my sister always used to tell me that he is my son, and now it's like she's handing him over to me and saying 'this is your son, he is your responsibility',"she said. Deported Venezuelan crawls out from rubble Lisbeth Portillo, 58, had crossed into the US in 2021. And for more than four years, she lived in South Florida until she was arrested by immigration officers (ICE). She and 145 other deportees landed in Venezuela on June 24 — just hours before the tremors began. Among the deportees were 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor. They were ferried away to a state-run holding facility. Lisbeth was lying on a facility bed when the floor began to shake. "I started hearing 'papa, papa papapa', and I saw the women next to me start to fall," she said, describing the sounds from the earthquake. "They were all screaming for help." She was buried under a beam before she somehow got out alongside 20 other deportees. They walked the streets for kilometres before they reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives. Lisbeth called her husband in the US. "I said to him, 'Cesar, I'm alive. Help me.' And my husband kept saying, 'It can't be,'" she told AP. Her husband called their children, who picked her up and were able to reunite with their mother the following night. "I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,"she said. ABC/Wires