How a son rescued his father from the rubble of Venezuela’s earthquakes

La Guaira, Venezuela – On the evening of June 24, Jose Garcia was at home with his wife and two younger sons. They shared an apartment on the second floor of the towering Ritasol Palace, eleven storeys of concrete and glass overlooking the turquoise coastline of Caraballeda, a seaside suburb of La Guaira. But in a moment, it all came crashing down. At roughly 6:04pm local time, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake rumbled across the coastline, followed, within seconds, by an even more powerful quake. The entire edifice fell. Jose Garcia found himself no longer on the second floor — but instead buried in the basement of what had once been his building. Trapped next to him were his two boys, 7-year-old Diego and 12-year-old Santiago. “The worst thing that can happen to anyone is to be stuck like that,” said Jose, a 46-year-old car mechanic. But an unexpected rescuer would arrive to help them survive what would become Venezuela's deadliest earthquake in more than a century. "This, right here, this is my eldest son," Jose said tearfully, gesturing to 26-year-old Jesus Garcia, a muscular man with reflective sunglasses and a close-cropped beard. "He was one of the heroes who rescued me." Jesus had been a local firefighter in La Guaira, but he left the force before the earthquake. One of his former colleagues, a family friend, had kept his helmet and jacket for him, just in case. They came in handy on the night of the earthquake. As Jesus rushed to the ruins of the collapsed apartment building, he did not know whether his family had survived or perished. Nothing was certain. As of Sunday, more than 3,342 people have been confirmed dead, and the number is expected to continue rising. Bodies remain concealed in the debris. Jesus remembers finding his family friend, the firefighter, at the scene when he reached what was once Ritasol Palace. Where his family's apartment had stood, there were now only jagged slabs of concrete, with reinforced steel bars twisting into the night sky. A fluffy tan couch, wooden furniture, and the crumbling remnants of walls had spilled into the property’s swimming pool. “At that moment, when I arrived, [my friend] told me, ‘Partner, your dad’s alive. He’s down there alive with the boys,’” Jesus told Al Jazeera. At first, Jesus did not believe it was possible, but then he heard his father shouting out from the rubble, saying: "Don't leave me here." “I said, ‘Trust me: Stay calm. Keep the kids calm over there. I’m not leaving here without you,'" Jesus recalled. Jose had been trapped for more than an hour by that point, unsure of his fate. He and his two younger sons had survived the collapse with relatively minor injuries, but dangers remained. The debris could still shift and crush them. “The first thing I thought of was my children. I had the little one right here,” Jose recalled, lifting his hands to his chest. “And I still had the other one. He was right next to me but buried. I couldn't see his face; I could only see one foot and one hand.” Still, Jose put on a brave face for his boys. A friendly voice had pierced the rubble: Jesus's friend, the firefighter. He had been shouting for survivors. He had also brought Jesus's old firefighting equipment to the site. After finding out his father and brothers were alive, Jesus began desperately trying to get them out. But he realised he would have to wait until the next day for the sun to come up and, crucially, to get his hands on a jackhammer that could drill through the floors of rubble separating him from his family. Finally, the next morning, a specialist squad from the police arrived with the gear they needed to carry out the rescue. With the help of his firefighting team from La Guaira, who showed up to help their old comrade, Jesus was able to pull his father and two younger brothers from the rubble at about 3:30pm on June 25, more than 20 hours after the earthquakes. He quickly swept Diego and Santiago into his arms. “When I saw them, I hugged them, gave them a kiss, and said, ‘I love you, brother,'" Jesus recalled. "Then I stepped away for a moment and started crying.” Jose is still shaken from the experience, which has changed his life forever. “I am someone who will be grateful for the rest of my life that I was given this opportunity. Not just me, but my two young children.” Despite the miraculous recovery, Jose’s wife is still stuck beneath the rubble. Even after 11 days, Jose hopes she will be found alive. “I have faith. Just as I had faith that I would be able to get out with my children, that they would rescue me, I still haven't lost hope," he said. Jose is just one of countless Venezuelans whose lives were upturned in the twin earthquakes, the country's deadliest natural disaster in more than two decades. A few kilometres down the road from Ritasol Palace, Andreina Rey sleeps in the street outside the ruins of her old flat. When the earthquakes struck, she was working as a cook at a coal mine in Colombia to provide for her daughter, a young mother of two, in Venezuela. But in an instant, she lost everything. She quickly travelled back across the border, only to find her family among the more than 50,000 people missing. “My daughter, my grandchildren, my daughter's mother-in-law, father-in-law, and brother-in-law — they are all stuck in there,” Rey said, pointing to the ruins of her old apartment block. Tuesday was her daughter’s 20th birthday. With the help of local volunteers, she put candles on a cake and lit them. Then, she broke down crying. “I lost all my family. There is nothing here for me now,” Rey sobbed. According to the Venezuelan government, some 856 buildings have been damaged, and 190 have collapsed. Some estimates, using satellite data, put the destruction even higher. Experts say the scale of the crisis is unprecedented for Venezuela. Thousands of people cannot return to their homes. “For the population, there is a huge amount of uncertainty,” said Jan Costa, a psychiatrist attending to survivors in the capital, Caracas. “Their future is up in the air.” According to the doctor, the pain and uncertainty following the tragedy have been aggravated by what many Venezuelans see as government impotence. Critics have blamed the government for a slow disaster response — and, in some cases, for impeding the delivery of aid and services. “The fact that there’s no response from the government or government presence in the face of the crisis really upsets people,” Costa said. At the site of the collapsed Ritasol Palace, Jose spends his days watching international rescue teams search for bodies. His mind is troubled with concerns about the future. “We have to start from scratch, but we don’t know at what cost or what the impact will be," he said. "We just don’t know.”