00:00On Wednesday, two powerful 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes struck Venezuela,
00:06toppling buildings and severely damaging that country's main international airport.
00:10Now, as of this morning, the death toll has risen to at least 920,
00:14with nearly 3,400 more injured and many thousands missing.
00:18The U.S. Geological Survey says that with earthquakes of this size,
00:22the estimated death toll is expected to exceed 10,000.
00:26Of course, also a first big test for acting Venezuelan President Delce Rodriguez
00:29is it could be what makes or breaks a potential regime
00:31for the latest on the recovery and rescue operations in Venezuela,
00:35which went by Bloomberg's Andrina Itriago.
00:37Ina, great to speak with you, and I want to ask you first just about the figures
00:40that we cited just a moment ago.
00:42How much credence should we give to them as we look at sort of the spread,
00:45the geographic spread of this disaster, and see the buildings that have collapsed
00:49and reports that there are many more that are in really dire shape?
00:53How likely is it that those numbers of casualties, deaths,
00:56are much higher than are being reported?
00:59Yeah, there's a probability that they are way higher.
01:02The thing is that the international support arrived just between Thursday night
01:08and yesterday, so it wasn't until then that the rescue labor properly began.
01:14So we are expecting that number to rise considerably in the coming days,
01:20especially as the bodies are recovered from what remains of the buildings that came down.
01:27There's an estimate by the government as well that nearly 1,500 buildings or infrastructure
01:36came down with these earthquakes, so we're expecting the number to get way higher.
01:41And also the opposition has set up this website or platform where people are reporting missing persons,
01:51and by now, as of today, 7 a.m. Bogota time, the number had risen to nearly 70,000 people.
02:02So we're talking about a lot of people still missing,
02:05and, well, we'll see what happens as the rescue labors unfold.
02:10With the government and kind of this interesting status,
02:14I was reading that folks on the ground haven't seen the Venezuelan military on the ground helping clear this rebel
02:20like they might have in times before with Maduro in charge.
02:26What is the capacity of this government to do search-and-rescue operations,
02:29to get in there and move the rebel?
02:31Are they really just relying on international aid at this point?
02:35The capacity the government has is very low.
02:37Actually, like the Venezuelan opposition pointed this out yesterday in a statement,
02:42and what we saw in the first, I would say, 48 hours after the earthquakes
02:48was that it was the people who were doing most of the things.
02:53Like, people went to these disaster areas,
02:56and they tried to start pulling others from what remained of the buildings.
03:02The capacity is very low, and, yeah, they are relying very highly on this international support.
03:08What we were hearing from doctors especially is that this happened in a moment
03:15where Venezuela was already struggling or facing a deep humanitarian crisis.
03:20So, yeah, this happens.
03:22The government has very low capacity to handle this.
03:25However, I must say that the Venezuela government deployed troops in the La Guayra area,
03:32which was the state that was most affected.
03:36But this was more in a security way to prevent looting and other actions
03:42that might follow after an event like this.
03:44I want to ask you, lastly, just about the role that the U.S. is playing here.
03:48Before I get there, let me just play a bit of sound here of Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
03:51who, of course, has been so integrally involved in what's happened in Venezuela
03:53over the last many months talking about this disaster and the path forward.
03:56Let's take a listen.
03:57I had an opportunity to talk earlier this morning with Delce Rodriguez, the acting president.
04:01We're obviously awaiting the – we're already deploying search and rescue teams
04:06from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles.
04:09There will be some others we'll add.
04:10That's their most immediate need right now is search and rescue efforts.
04:13They have a bunch of collapsed buildings,
04:15and so they'll need a lot of help in terms of digging through that.
04:18The airport there is badly damaged,
04:20so we'll have to rely on the Department of War to deploy assets there.
04:23And then we're also helping them with some overhead imagery,
04:26especially in coastal areas where they don't have full visibility
04:29over what the damage has been and what the impact has been.
04:32You know, he's talking about a big project there,
04:34and I think part of this larger project the U.S. has now with Venezuela.
04:37I wonder if you can kind of marry these two things.
04:38Yes, U.S. aid for this disaster,
04:40but this kind of broader new tack that the U.S. is taking toward Venezuela.
04:44Yeah, definitely.
04:46U.S. has been very involved in all of this.
04:49As Secretary of State said,
04:51they are sending 250 personnel to Venezuela right now,
04:55but it's not the first time that we're seeing this over the past months.
05:00After the U.S. capture of Nicolas Maduro,
05:03the U.S. has been deeply involved in all of Venezuela's situation.
05:07We've been seeing very top-ranked officials from the U.S.
05:15visiting Venezuela over the past months.
05:17So, yeah, it's a challenge for both the U.S. Trump administration
05:23and the Delce Rodriguez interim government, this whole situation.
05:29And it's still to see, like, analysts are waiting to see
05:32how they both handle the situation,
05:35because I think it depends what happens now
05:38will determine definitely what happens in the next months in Venezuela.
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