How to quantify such a tragedy. What numbers can help us understand the level of destruction in Venezuela after the earthquake. Because measuring it at 7.2 and 7.5, the shaking scale, does not help those of us who do not know how to measure how the earth shakes. More than 200 dead, as many missing, thousands of families left homeless by the more than 250 collapsed buildings. More numbers, all provisional, which are just the beginning.
The number that is most worrying now is the countdown to continue rescuing the thousands of people trapped in the rubble. Some scream under collapsed buildings so that brigades of rescuers, neighbors and dogs can be guided by the sound to find them. How long can trapped people survive?
That is another key figure. The most important one now. 72. The first 72 hours after an earthquake are crucial to saving most lives. There are 48 left. But it’s not just time that matters, resources are key. And very scarce in a country where, before this earthquake, only 19% of homes already had daily electricity. 19%; and only 12% of emergency personnel remained in medical centers. That was before. Medical resources in Venezuela had already been exhausted before the earthquake. The devastation before the devastation.
We do not yet know the real death toll in La Guaira, but we do know, earthquake experts always say, that it is not the earthquakes that kill people, it is the collapse of the infrastructure. Especially if they are not designed to withstand earthquakes or if those construction standards are not met.
And despite being an area, Venezuela, where earthquakes are so frequent, most of the collapsed buildings did not have adequate reinforcements. And poor construction, like poverty and scarcity, is neither a natural nor inevitable disaster. It is the result of another phenomenon. And that is difficult to quantify in Venezuela: the sum of bad political decisions.
Moral?
How to console yourself
the tragedy in Venezuela
