Venezuela's earthquake response hindered by economic and political crises

By — Amna Nawaz Amna Nawaz By — Zeba Warsi Zeba Warsi Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/venezuelas-earthquake-response-hindered-by-economic-and-political-crises Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio The U.S and other nations are mobilizing relief efforts to assist the government in Venezuela following the twin earthquakes. Special correspondent Mónica Villamizar has extensive experience reporting in Venezuela and joined Amna Nawaz from Bogotá, Colombia, to discuss the latest developments. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Amna Nawaz: Venezuela's neighbor to the west, Colombia, was shaken by its own earthquake yesterday, but nothing near the scale of the Venezuelan tremors. Special correspondent Monica Villamizar is in the Colombian capital of Bogota. She has long experience reporting in Venezuela, and she joins us now. Monica, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Monica Villamizar: It's great to be here, Amna. Amna Nawaz: So this was an absolutely devastating earthquake in Venezuela. Just tell us what you're learning about the scale of the damage and what you're hearing from people inside Venezuela right now. Monica Villamizar: I have a whole documentary crew on the ground. And, thankfully, they're safe. But I can tell you, Amna, that what we are hearing is that the devastation is likely to be way more severe than the reports, the official reports, we're seeing. Communications are disrupted, to say the least. And that means that the statistics regarding the injured, casualties are not reliable at this point in the capital, Caracas. It's a capital of three million people. And a lot of the buildings there, Amna, are very old. I can tell you that by experience. They do not follow the code or systemic regulations, so the ones that are still standing are very frail, some of those, and they can also collapse if there are aftershocks. And, as we know, there have been aftershocks. Amna Nawaz: As you well know from covering these kinds of disasters in the past, these first 24, 48 hours are absolutely critical when it comes to search-and-rescue. What else are you hearing in terms of the challenges for the first responders? And where's the greatest need right now? Monica Villamizar: Well, that's a great question. And we are hearing reports that the emergency -- early emergency warning system did not work. So people did not know what to do, and then there was the aftershock, very strong aftershock, indeed. So that could have saved lives maybe. As you know, covering so many earthquakes, these early warning systems do make a difference. And, sadly, this did not work, apparently. We understand and there are reports that people in neighborhoods have not seen a single ambulance or emergency rescue worker. So that, again, is very worrying. The critical challeng