A month after Venezuela's quakes, families still dig for the dead

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A month after the double earthquake of 24 June, Venezuela's confirmed death toll has passed 5,300 and there is still no official count of the missing, leaving the scale of the disaster unresolved even as official attention shifts to reconstruction. Telesur reports that recovery plans now cover more than 128,000 affected people and that the College of Engineers of Venezuela has inspected over 8,000 structures in Caracas to determine whether they can be lived in again. That machinery of assessment and rebuilding runs alongside a search that families are still conducting themselves: El País has described residents digging through collapsed buildings by hand as government equipment moves in and threatens to clear the ruins before the dead are recovered, and Folha de S.Paulo reports teenagers breaking concrete and sawing through rebar in the rubble as they look for their mother's body. Without a missing-persons register, no authority can declare the search over, and those still digging remain the only ones counting. The emotional toll reaches into the government itself, with Carabobo governor Rafael Lacava telling Folha de S.Paulo he had "never cried so much in his life". The disaster's consequences also extend beyond Venezuela's borders, as El País notes that thousands of Venezuelans in the United States remain at risk of deportation to a devastated country, prompting calls to redesignate Temporary Protected Status. That question is so far unresolved, and it links the recovery inside Venezuela to decisions being made in Washington.

Two earthquakes struck Venezuela on 24 June, causing widespread building collapses and a confirmed death toll that has since passed 5,300, according to El País. Authorities have not published a count of the missing, so the true number of victims remains unknown. Among the affected regions is the state of Carabobo, whose governor, Rafael Lacava, has spoken publicly about the personal toll of the disaster. Recovery efforts have become contested, with residents searching the rubble for relatives while official clearance operations advance. The disaster also carries consequences for Venezuelans abroad, particularly the large population in the United States whose deportation risk has revived debate over Temporary Protected Status.