‘God is punishing the politicians’: anger at earthquake response grows in Venezuela

People line up to receive assistance at a shelter run by the UN in Catia La Mar. Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters View image in fullscreen People line up to receive assistance at a shelter run by the UN in Catia La Mar. Photograph: Leonardo Fernández Viloria/Reuters ‘God is punishing the politicians’: anger at earthquake response grows in Venezuela Threat of social unrest rises as public indignation at lack of disaster aid comes on top of fallout from US military intervention A revolution in ruins: fury amid the rubble of a housing project in quake-hit Venezuela Public anger at what many perceive as the Venezuelan government’s botched response to twin earthquakes that killed nearly 4,500 people is growing, with one grieving mother caught on camera berating the son of former president Nicolás Maduro. Maduro’s politician son received a hostile reception while visiting a semi-destroyed social housing project named after his father’s late mentor Hugo Chávez. “I didn’t lose a kitchen! I lost a daughter!” the woman, named as Damely Yaneth Díaz, can be seen shouting at congressman Nicolás Maduro Guerra in scenes captured by the Norwegian broadcaster TV2 last week. “The lot of you should be arrested,” said Díaz, a resident of Catia La Mar, one of the worst-hit areas along Venezuela’s north coast. “This was recklessness and you must pay!” Bystanders cheered on the dissenter, urging the European journalists to continue filming the altercation after officials apparently tried to interrupt their work. Díaz’s comments, which went viral on social media, captured widespread rage at what many see as the government’s inept response to the 24 June quakes, which levelled scores of buildings in the northern state of La Guaira and caused major damage in the capital, Caracas. On Sunday, the government raised the official death toll to 4,490 , but that number is expected to rise significantly, with many bodies still being pulled from the wreckage of large buildings. Venezuela’s US-backed acting president, Delcy Rodríguez , has dismissed criticism as the product of a nefarious media campaign cooked up in propaganda “laboratories”. Last week, Rodríguez, a close Maduro ally who took power in January after the US president, Donald Trump, ordered the abduction of her leader, insisted her administration and armed forces were working “tirelessly” to help victims. She sought to partially justify the slow response by arguing that many of La Guaira’s top officials had been killed. But Rodríguez has so far avoided high-profile interactions with the families of the deceased and missing who were on the frontline of the crisis, in seaside towns such as Caraballeda and Catia La Mar. On Friday, she visited a military base in the region to address some of the thousands of troops she says have been deployed, but did not mingle with members of the public. During her televised speech, Rodríguez told the soldiers that “wretched” critics of the government and armed forces “wil