Buildings collapse as 2 earthquakes slam Venezuela

CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP) — Back-to-back pow­er­ful earth­quakes slammed Venezuela yes­ter­day evening, col­laps­ing build­ings in the cap­i­tal of Cara­cas and leav­ing res­i­dents shak­en.

The US Ge­o­log­i­cal Sur­vey said the first earth­quake had a mag­ni­tude of 7.1 and its epi­cen­tre was west of the com­mu­ni­ty of Morón, lo­cat­ed along the coun­try’s Caribbean coast, about 168 kilo­me­tres (104 miles) west of Cara­cas. The quake had a depth of 22 kilo­me­tres.

The US­GS re­port­ed an even larg­er 7.5-mag­ni­tude earth­quake just a minute lat­er. The sec­ond quake had a depth of 10 kilo­me­tres and its epi­cen­tre was 16 kilo­me­tres (10 miles) south­west of Morón.

The quakes, which were al­so felt in neigh­bour­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a cen­tu­ry.

The earth­quakes struck short­ly af­ter 6 pm lo­cal time. Peo­ple evac­u­at­ed sway­ing build­ings in Cara­cas and re­mained out­side, many vis­i­bly shocked as they saw en­tire walls that had col­lapsed. Dust columns could al­so be seen in two neigh­bour­hoods of the cap­i­tal, where restau­rants and oth­er busi­ness­es are typ­i­cal­ly busy. Peo­ple re­mained on the streets af­ter sun­set.

In­te­ri­or Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo said the quake was felt in sev­er­al states. The Al­tami­ra neigh­bour­hood in Cara­cas had “alarm­ing sit­u­a­tions” with col­lapsed homes and build­ings, he said, sug­gest­ing peo­ple were in­jured in the earth­quake and ask­ing mo­torists to give way to am­bu­lances and oth­er emer­gency ve­hi­cles.

“We un­der­stand that some peo­ple may be des­per­ate, but we are act­ing ac­cord­ing to pro­to­cols to ac­ti­vate aid and res­cue ef­forts to help those who need it most,” Ca­bel­lo said on state tele­vi­sion.

“Be very care­ful with chil­dren and the el­der­ly; call each oth­er and check that no one has been harmed.”

He al­so urged peo­ple to re­main out­side as af­ter­shocks could fur­ther dam­age some struc­tures.

The US Pa­cif­ic Tsuna­mi Warn­ing Cen­tre al­so is­sued a tsuna­mi alert for the Vir­gin Is­lands, while au­thor­i­ties in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic al­so is­sued one for the is­land. An­oth­er alert for Puer­to Ri­co was quick­ly lift­ed.

Strong earth­quakes are un­usu­al in Venezuela.

While the coun­try sits near mul­ti­ple fault lines, its po­si­tion strad­dling the South Amer­i­can and Caribbean plates makes earth­quakes much less com­mon than in oth­er parts of Latin Amer­i­ca.