Months after Venezuela’s earthquakes, families cling to hope in search of loved ones

Families Continue Searching Months After Venezuela’s Twin Earthquakes

Earthguardiansonline.com – More than 100 days after twin earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, families in La Guaira and nearby communities are still living between loss and uncertainty. Heavy machinery continues to tear through collapsed concrete, while relatives wait near the ruins for news of people who have not been found.

For Eilyn Solano, the search has become her daily life. She has remained in a tent close to the site of the collapsed OPP 26 social housing complex, enduring intense midday heat and the constant noise of excavators. Her youngest child, 11-year-old Jhoniel José Morales, vanished after the disaster, and she believes answers may still be found.

Solano sleeps and eats beside the wreckage, keeping close watch on each recovery from the fallen towers. Officials issued a final death toll of 6,509 on August 24, two months after the earthquakes. No official number of missing people has been made public, leaving residents and families to maintain their own lists and search networks.

A Family Searching Beyond the Rubble

The Solano family has helped recover the remains of more than 17 people, yet Jhoniel has not been among them. His relatives initially believed he may have gone to a nearby sports field, where one of the buildings collapsed.

Security footage showed the boy walking down the apartment stairs at 3:59 p.m. on June 24, only hours before the earthquakes. His 15-year-old sister, María Yailén, survived. Another sister, Mariangel, 12, died in the collapse. Her body was located on the third floor outside the apartment of their grandmother, who had been caring for her that day. The grandmother was rescued alive hours later.

Search crews later examined the area around the sports field on September 26 without finding Jhoniel. The family did, however, locate the security-camera control room and a disc containing another recording. They say it shows Jhoniel leaving the building minutes before the earthquake struck.

“Not on the field side, not at the entrance, and certainly not in the hallways,” Eilyn’s sister Chiquinquirá said of the search area.

That discovery widened the family’s search. Relatives have checked streets, shelters, medical facilities, morgues and collection centers, while also visiting cemeteries including La Esperanza in Catia la Mar, where unidentified people are buried. Friends, volunteers and family members have traveled by motorcycle between La Guaira and Caracas in an effort to locate the child.

“Among all the possibilities there is a glimmer of hope, and that is why we continue the search until the end, until we obtain some kind of answer about the whereabouts of the child,” Chiquinquirá said.

The family has asked authorities and residents to keep circulating Jhoniel’s photograph and to share any information that could establish where he went after leaving the complex.

Community Support Fills the Gaps

Residents say the search has continued through local solidarity as much as through formal rescue operations. Affected families have supplied search teams with water, ice and electrolyte drinks while workers dig through dangerous, unstable debris.

The Solanos have endured catastrophe before. They survived the deadly Vargas mudslide of 1999, an experience that has shaped their resolve not to stop looking for Jhoniel. For relatives facing an unknown outcome, the passage of time does not provide closure when no confirmed answer exists.

In several parts of La Guaira, collapsed buildings have left blocks marked by silence and empty spaces. Military personnel can now be seen clearing debris in some locations, a visible presence that relatives say differed sharply from the earliest hours after the earthquake, when families said officials were absent from some affected sites. The government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez has defended the performance of its rescue teams.

Waiting for Confirmation

At the Residencias Caribe housing complex, relatives, firefighters and volunteers have created a bulletin board to record the names of people believed to remain beneath the concrete. The board is both a practical tool and a reminder that the official death toll does not settle the questions facing families whose loved ones have not been identified.

Nayibe Geromes is searching for her mother, Leida Mata. They last spoke about six hours before the earthquakes. The building’s two basements are flooded with seawater, and its interior structure has been severely damaged, making recovery efforts especially difficult.

“At this point, I don’t expect to find a complete body, but rather skeletal remains,” Geromes said.

Even so, she has not accepted that the search is over.

“Until there is a body, there is no death,” she said.

Nearby, Angie Valentina Sojo Andarcia is trying to find her 50-year-old husband. When the earthquake struck, she was in Caracas with her daughter for a medical appointment and was speaking with him by telephone. During the call, she heard glass shatter before the connection suddenly ended.

She later secured help from a volunteer foundation to remove debris and reach the area where her kitchen once stood. Like many others at the damaged housing sites, she is confronting a search that has become longer, more physically demanding and increasingly painful with each passing week.

For the families gathered near the ruins, recovery is not simply about clearing buildings. It is about identifying the missing, preserving every possible lead and refusing to let uncertainty become the final answer.