Wednesday briefing: After two powerful earthquakes, what is the reality on the ground in Venezuela?

People are working together to find missing relatives amid accusations the government forces are not doing enough. Photograph: Ariana Cubillos/AP View image in fullscreen People are working together to find missing relatives amid accusations the government forces are not doing enough. Photograph: Ariana Cubillos/AP Wednesday briefing: After two powerful earthquakes, what is the reality on the ground in Venezuela? In today’s newsletter: A country already in crisis since the removal of its leader earlier this year by the US, now has to find a way to rebuild with little state presence in evidence The shaking seemed to come from nowhere. In a moment captured by fishers off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, two earthquakes struck seconds apart . Plumes of dust appear where buildings once stood in the recording as the camera rises and falls with the swell. The men rapidly head for the shore in search of their families. “I’m shaking,” says the cameraman. Since the quakes struck last Wednesday, the search for missing loved ones has not stopped for scores of Venezuelans. Officially, more than 1,700 people have died. But tens of thousands remain missing: desperate relatives are walking up and down streets lined by rubble and collapsed buildings with photos of those they cannot find, asking for help. One week on, people are still being pulled from the rubble. On Monday, a 21-year-old Aaron Levi Cantillo Vargas was rescued after spending 106 hours trapped under a collapsed building. But with every passing second, hope is fading in a nation that was already fragile due to economic crises, corruption and the capture of its former dictator Nicolás Maduro by US forces earlier this year. For today on First Edition, I spoke with Clavel Rangel , a Venezuelan journalist, who has been reporting for the Guardian on the earthquake and the desperate search for survivors since it struck. But first, the headlines. Five big stories World news | A child has been rescued from the rubble in Venezuela, six days since the country was hit by devastating twin earthquakes. UK politics | Andy Burnham will have to find an extra £4.7bn for defence in his first budget, after Keir Starmer announced a £298bn defence investment plan (Dip) without having fully identified how it will be funded. US politics | The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. UK news | The European media group Axel Springer has completed its £575m takeover of the Telegraph, ending years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the 171-year-old titles. US news | Nine matches in the World Cup group stage were played amid potentially dangerous heat and humidity, a Guardian analysis shows. In depth: ‘We all thought we were going to die’ View image in fullscreen With tens of thousands unaccounted for the scale of the disaster is still un