Rescue teams race to Venezuela amid fears thousands killed in earthquakes

People search for casualties amid the rubble of collapsed buildings, in La Guaira, Venezuela. Photograph: Maxwell Briceno/Reuters View image in fullscreen People search for casualties amid the rubble of collapsed buildings, in La Guaira, Venezuela. Photograph: Maxwell Briceno/Reuters Rescue teams race to Venezuela amid fears thousands killed in earthquakes US among nations sending help to search for survivors on country’s north coast where dozen of buildings flattened Venezuela earthquake – latest updates Rescue teams are racing to Venezuela’s shattered northern coast after a sucker punch of almost simultaneous earthquakes reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, with thousands feared to have been killed. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the Department of Defense would help search and rescue teams deploy to the affected region after Venezuela’s main gateway, the Simón Bolívar international airport, was badly damaged by 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes, less than 40 seconds apart, late on Wednesday afternoon. Venezuela declares state of emergency after deadly twin earthquakes Read more “[Their] most immediate need right now is search and rescue efforts. They have [lots of] collapsed buildings and so they will need a lot of help in terms of digging through that,” Rubio told reporters, adding that the next 72 “golden” hours were critical. “In search and rescue you are trying to get to people while you can still save their lives – they are buried under rubble,” Rubio said. The coastal area near the international airport – around the cities of La Guaira, Catia La Mar and Caraballeda – appears to have sustained by far the worst damage, with a string of large tower blocks completely levelled and locals desperately hunting for missing loved ones. In some cases entire families of four or five people have disappeared. “This is an utter tragedy,” the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, said in a televised broadcast, declaring the La Guaira region a “disaster zone”. View image in fullscreen The impact of the earthquake at Simón Bolívar international airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, Photograph: Wilmer Azuaje/Reuters Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, also suffered severe damage, with several buildings collapsing in the Altamira and Los Palos Grandes neighbourhoods. Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN’s humanitarian agency, Ocha , said : “We are fully mobilised right now … We will surge in people, we will surge in solidarity and, most important, we will surge in search and rescue support … for people who have lost so much … Now is the time for action.” View image in fullscreen People search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building in Catia La Mar, La Guaira state, about 30km northwest of Caracas. Photograph: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images The UN agency reported that more than 100 buildings had collapsed in the La Guaira region alone. They included a large block of apartments called the Ritasol Palace and the seafront Eduard’s Hotel, both of which were f