A push to identify bodies as deaths multiply in Venezuela after twin earthquakes

Speak­ing in a hushed voice, Rosa López re­called how she had to side­step the rows of bod­ies ly­ing un­der a harsh sun as she helped her daugh­ter search for her miss­ing hus­band. Even her years work­ing as a nurse did not pre­pare her for the sight of the dozens of dead wrapped in sheets or blan­kets.

“We saw a lot of bod­ies that had not yet been iden­ti­fied,” López said.

The rush is on across La Guaira, the state on Venezuela’s north­ern coast hard­est hit by the pow­er­ful back-to-back June 24 earth­quakes, to iden­ti­fy loved ones be­fore it’s too late. With at least 2,295 peo­ple killed, Venezuela is over­whelmed with bod­ies that of­fi­cials are strug­gling to col­lect, iden­ti­fy and pre­serve for loved ones to claim. Thou­sands are still miss­ing.

José An­to­nio Tole­do, López’s 25-year-old son-in-law, was found un­der the build­ing where he was work­ing as a se­cu­ri­ty guard when the quakes struck. Crews took his body to a lo­cal hos­pi­tal, where staff turned them away be­cause there was no space. The body was sent to an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty and even­tu­al­ly trans­ferred to an open park­ing lot.

A foren­sic doc­tor helped the fam­i­ly find him days lat­er, on Sat­ur­day. But once they iden­ti­fied his body, they didn’t know what to do with it be­cause they couldn’t af­ford the $450 that a fu­ner­al home was charg­ing.

At al­most mid­night on Sat­ur­day, López got word that the may­or’s of­fice was of­fer­ing them a free space at a lo­cal ceme­tery, but they had to move quick­ly to not lose the spot. An hour lat­er, López and her daugh­ter trudged up a hill lead­ing to the ceme­tery and buried Tole­do.

“He was an ex­em­plary per­son, a boy who liked help­ing peo­ple,” López said.

They saved him from a mass grave that many fear is com­ing as they search for the bod­ies of their loved ones.

The num­ber of bod­ies found is ex­pect­ed to soar

Foren­sic tech­ni­cian Joel Mira­bal has worked for sev­en days straight since the 7.2 and 7.5 mag­ni­tude earth­quakes struck.

The 45-year-old es­ti­mates that in 60% to 70% of cas­es, there’s a rel­a­tive or neigh­bor avail­able to iden­ti­fy a body when he comes to pick it up. Even so, it’s a strug­gle, he said, with many re­ly­ing on tat­toos, scars or fa­mil­iar cloth­ing.

“They don’t look even 10% like what they were in re­al life,” he said of the vic­tims.

If a body can­not be iden­ti­fied, it goes to foren­sic spe­cial­ists work­ing at La Guaira sea­port. Pri­vate com­pa­nies have do­nat­ed large cool­ing con­tain­ers to help pre­serve the bod­ies, but the num­ber of dead keeps grow­ing.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, mass graves will have to be cre­at­ed,” Mira­bal said. “The col­lapse is mas­sive, and the bod­ies are buried un­der many lay­ers of de­bris.”

Mira­bal said he and oth­er foren­sic tech­ni­cians an­tic­i­pate spend­ing up to three months col­lect­ing bod­ies.

They dri­ve around the af­fect­ed ar­eas every day, led by res­cue crews and civil­ians who have re­cov­ered or spot­ted bod­ies.

“Many of the res­cues are car­ried out by the peo­ple,” he said of the thou­sands of or­di­nary Venezue­lans who have pitched in for the re­cov­ery ef­fort.

A dog train­er by pro­fes­sion who once helped the gov­ern­ment lo­cate drugs and miss­ing peo­ple, Mira­bal finds so­lace in the 12 dogs wait­ing for him at home, not count­ing the pup­pies. One of his fa­vorites is Mi­la, a young black Dutch Shep­herd who lay by his side on Thurs­day as he rest­ed.

“It’s not easy at all to wit­ness the suf­fer­ing and tragedy of your fel­low hu­man be­ings,” he said.

Venezue­lans wait in line to try to iden­ti­fy loved ones

Over the week­end, crews took dozens of bod­ies re­cov­ered from flat­tened build­ings to a gov­ern­ment-run health care fa­cil­i­ty in the city of La Guaira. They were left on a swel­ter­ing park­ing lot un­til fam­i­lies iden­ti­fied them, with fu­ner­al home work­ers es­ti­mat­ing that more than 200 bod­ies were kept there at one point.

On Thurs­day, those who lost loved ones wait­ed out­side La Guaira sea­port to iden­ti­fy bod­ies that au­thor­i­ties con­tin­ue to pick up across the coastal state. Cars, in­clud­ing trucks and vans from fu­ner­al homes, formed a line out­side a makeshift morgue.

Among those wait­ing was Robert Ro­dríguez. He sat on a con­crete block, crest­fall­en, his legs dan­gling, wait­ing for his daugh­ter to iden­ti­fy the body of his son-in-law. Rafael Al­vara­do died trapped in­side a gro­cery store where he worked at the deli counter.

Ro­dríguez said the fam­i­ly found Al­vara­do in the rub­ble on Wednes­day, his body freed and trans­port­ed to the port on Thurs­day.

“I saw his shoes and knew it was him,” Ro­dríguez said, adding that he warned his daugh­ter. “I told her, ‘Pre­pare your­self.’”

He said the fam­i­ly plans to cre­mate Al­vara­do and scat­ter his ash­es on Is­la de Mar­gari­ta, the Venezue­lan is­land that was his home. —LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO and DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Dan­i­ca Co­to re­port­ed from San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co.