Fernanda Pesce and Juan Pablo Arraez
Catia La Mar: Rescuers pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from a collapsed basement early on Thursday, ending a gruelling, days-long operation that became a symbol of hope after the devastation of twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela eight days earlier.
Hernán Alberto Gil Flores emerged to safety atop a stretcher surrounded by helmet-clad rescue workers after being trapped since June 24 under rubble in the basement of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping centre in the coastal town in La Guaira.
Rescuers, who initially made contact with him over the weekend, worked for more than 100 hours to free him – navigating a highly unstable structure, torrential rain and persistent aftershocks to tunnel down to the survivor.
Teams carrying flags from around the world cheered as rescuers carried Gil Flores, wearing an oxygen mask and covered in an orange tarp, through throngs of people to an ambulance.
One Chilean rescuer carrying his stretcher pumped his fist in joy. A group of men in red Costa Rican Red Cross uniforms embraced and laughed in relief. Others broke out into applause.
“When we found him, he asked us not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn’t make it,” Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado told The Associated Press, but she added “We were never going to leave him here.”
The rescue was considered a small miracle cutting through a week of tragedy. By supplying Gil Flores with food and water while they excavated the concrete, rescue teams were able to keep him alive far longer than the 48- to 72-hour threshold most operations give to find survivors in disasters.
Gil Flores, who worked as a night-shift security guard at the complex, was inside his small security cabin when the first violent tremor struck. While the surrounding concrete structure collapsed around him, his cabin held ground, shielding him from crushing debris and creating a vital pocket of air.
A specialised team from the Costa Rican Red Cross first detected signs of life and established contact with him on Sunday.
His wife, Gusbimar González, told the AP that she grappled with despair for days before hearing that rescuers made contact.
“When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness,” she said. The couple has two children, aged eight and 10.
The operation was coordinated by an urban search and rescue team of Chilean firefighters, who worked around the clock with specialised teams from the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Venezuela.
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez celebrated the rescue on social media at a time that her government has come under fire for what many Venezuelans say has been an inadequate crisis response.
“We celebrate the greatness of humanity, when it is united for a single purpose: to save another. Thank you to our rescuers and to the support of the international rescuers,” she wrote on a post on X.
Teams used a telescopic camera to help maintain constant contact with Gil Flores, passing water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft to keep him hydrated during the final three days of the rescue.
María Paz Campos, a veteran firefighter from Chile, talked him through the entire operation and kept him calm during the final excruciating hours on Thursday.
In a video published by Chilean firefighters in the hours before the rescue, Gil Flores is seen drawing, seemingly to pass the time. Campos then gently tells him to look at the camera and to wear protective goggles.
“I need you to keep the goggles on, for the small particles that are falling, to avoid them getting into your eye,” Campos told the Venezuelan survivor.
The collapse of the building was triggered by two back-to-back earthquakes on June 24 that registered magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, respectively. The shallow, violent tremors damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela, killing more than 2200 people, injuring over 11,000 and leaving La Guaira state as the hardest-hit region in the country.
AP
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