Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Venezuela’s government on Thursday issued its first public defence of its response to the June 24 twin earthquakes, as criticism grew over the speed and effectiveness of rescue work and acting President Delcy Rodriguez’s 180-day interim mandate was due to end on Friday.
The quakes struck the northern state of La Guaira and have killed more than 2,295 people, according to the latest government figures. A non-governmental digital database continues to list more than 38,000 people as missing. Even so, rescuers were still searching for survivors on Friday after a 43-year-old security guard was pulled alive from the basement of a collapsed mall nearly eight days after the disaster.
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Rodriguez, who had served as deputy to former President Nicolas Maduro until his capture by the Trump administration in January, waited more than an hour after the quakes to make her first public statement. She held her first news conference on the government’s response late Thursday, eight days after the disaster. Relief groups usually race to find survivors in the first three days after a natural disaster, as the chances of finding people alive fall sharply with time.
At the news conference, Rodriguez rejected reports that rescue efforts were being wound down, even as some international teams prepared to leave. “We have not closed the search-and-rescue phase. We are still in that stage because, according to our overall assessment, there are still active sites where we believe there may be survivors, even if there is only one,” she said.
She blamed public anger on what she called “narratives manufactured in propaganda laboratories” and said rescue teams had moved in at once with enough equipment. That was at odds with widespread complaints from residents, who said they were left to search for relatives on their own without official teams or heavy machinery for the first 48 hours. “Those propaganda operations, driven by partisan political interests, are despicable,” Rodriguez said. “We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately.” She also said 11 international field hospitals and health workers from 33 countries had been deployed to affected areas, and that the government had approved a fund to receive donations for rebuilding.
The United Nations Development Program has estimated the quakes caused USD 6.7 billion in physical damage in Venezuela, roughly 6 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product, not including longer-term recovery and reconstruction costs. Rodriguez’s remarks appeared aimed at showing that her government remained in control of the response. In recent months, she has overseen business-friendly reforms in Venezuela’s oil sector under US pressure, but there has been no urgency in returning the country to democracy.
Under Venezuela’s constitution, a temporary absence can be filled by the vice president for up to 90 days, with the National Assembly allowed to extend that by another 90 days. That 180-day period expired on Friday, and there was no immediate word from the authorities on what they would do next. The assembly, controlled by Rodriguez’s party, can call a snap election if lawmakers declare the post permanently vacant. No timetable has been announced for democratic elections, with the Trump administration saying before the earthquake that a vote would be held once Venezuela and its economy had stabilised.
Maduro had claimed victory in the 2024 election, in which opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado was barred from contesting. An independently verified count by the opposition found that the candidate backed by Machado had actually won. Machado has said she will return from exile to help with earthquake recovery, and earlier this week accused Rodriguez’s government of shutting airspace ahead of her flight to block her return. The Trump administration, which has repeatedly praised Rodriguez’s earthquake response, has largely turned away from Machado. As the search for survivors continued on Friday, the quake response, the death toll and the political uncertainty around Rodriguez’s interim rule remained central to the crisis.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
