Updated June 25, 2026 at 9:15 AM PDT
At least 164 people were killed and 971 injured after two major, back-to-back earthquakes struck northern Venezuela, toppling many buildings in the capital of Caracas and other cities.
Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced the casualties in an interview Thursday with state broadcaster Telesur, a significant rise from an earlier death toll of 32. The toll is expected to increase as rescuers and emergency workers search through the rubble.
An initial earthquake at about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, a 7.2-magnitude foreshock, was followed less than a minute later by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake around the same area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Rodríguez has declared a state of emergency. She said several Venezuelan states sustained damage, with La Guairá, north of Caracas, the hardest-hit.
"We can say that the state of La Guairá is experiencing a genuine tragedy and has become a disaster zone," she said. A United Nations humanitarian agency reported more than 100 buildings collapsed in La Guairá.
Rodríguez called for national unity to save lives. "Together we will overcome this tragedy," she said in a televised address.
"People were screaming" because it was so powerful
Photos and video posted online showed leveled buildings, people running for safety and falling debris from structural damage at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas. The airport has since closed.
"When the earthquake started, I was in my house, and it was super hard," Venezuelan journalist María Graterol told NPR's All Things Considered, speaking from Caracas. "You could see how the walls were moving and everything was moving around."
She left her apartment and found people gathered in a public square. "People were screaming because it was really, really, really hard," she said of the back-to-back quakes. Families with their pet cats waited outside in the street unable to go into their damaged buildings.
A strong rare "doublet"
The epicenters, which USGS estimated to be about 3 miles apart, were near the town of Morón on Venezuela's Caribbean coast, some 100 miles west of Caracas.
The strongest of the "doublet," as the USGS described the twin quakes, is the largest earthquake to strike Venezuela since 1900, when a 7.7-magnitude quake hit the country, according to USGS.
The total number of deaths and injuries is not yet clear. USGS modeling estimated deaths could be in the thousands to tens of thousands, with economic losses reaching billions to tens of billions of dollars, according to USGS seismologist Paul Earle.
"This doesn't happen very often," Earle told NPR. "When they're right together it's hard to understand what would happen."
Aftershocks have followed the earthquakes Wednesday and are likely to continue in the coming days.
By USGS' estimate, there's a 40% chance that in the next week a 6-magnitude or larger earthquake would strike in the same region, Earle said, and an "almost certainty" of an earthquake measuring at least a magnitude 5.
International response
Countries around the world have been offering condolences and support in the recovery.
President Trump said online he had instructed his administration to help Venezuela, saying the earthquakes were "both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths."
Rodríguez said U.S. officials have been in constant contact with her administration since the earthquakes. The disaster is a new test for Washington's role in Venezuela, coming more than five months after Trump sent forces to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from Caracas and said the U.S. would "run" the South American oil-producing country.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is sending search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Va., and Los Angeles, with logistical assistance from the Defense Department. He said the U.S. is also providing overhead imagery of coastal areas where he said the Venezuelan government does not have full visibility.
"Those are the acute short-term needs over the next 48-72 hours because in search and rescue, you are trying to get to people while you can still save their lives. They are buried under rubble," Rubio said.
The U.N.'s top humanitarian official, Tom Fletcher, said his office is coordinating the deployment of teams from around the world.
"Even before these earthquakes, nearly 8 million people in Venezuela were in need of humanitarian support," Fletcher said in a statement Thursday. "This disaster risks deepening existing vulnerabilities."
Rodríguez announced an initial $200 million reconstruction fund, using resources from the International Monetary Fund, for hospitals and homes damaged by the earthquakes.
Michele Kelemen, Alex Leff and Scott Detrow contributed to this story from Washington.
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