Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Rescuers in Venezuela pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from the basement of a collapsed shopping centre early Thursday, ending a difficult operation that lasted more than 100 hours and offered a rare moment of hope after twin earthquakes devastated the country eight days earlier.
Hernan Alberto Gil Flores, who had been trapped since June 24 under the rubble of the Galerias Playa Grande shopping centre in La Guaira, was brought out covered in dust on a stretcher and taken to an ambulance. Rescue teams had made contact with him over the weekend and kept him alive with food, water and liquid nutrients as they worked through torrential rain, aftershocks and an unstable structure.
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Gil Flores had been working a night shift as a security guard at the complex when the first strong tremor hit. He was inside his small security cabin when the surrounding concrete structure collapsed. The cabin remained in place, shielding him from falling debris and leaving a pocket of air.
A specialised team from the Costa Rican Red Cross first detected signs of life and established contact with him on Sunday. Teams from Chile, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Venezuela then worked around the clock, with the operation coordinated by an urban search and rescue team of Chilean firefighters.
As rescuers carried Gil Flores, wearing an oxygen mask and covered in an orange tarp, through crowds to an ambulance, teams carrying flags from different countries cheered. One Chilean rescuer carrying his stretcher pumped his fist, while a group of men in red Costa Rican Red Cross uniforms hugged each other and laughed in relief. Others applauded as medics checked his vital signs.
“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. She added, “We were never going to leave him here.” The rescue went far beyond the 48- to 72-hour period that most disaster operations consider critical for finding survivors.
His wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, said she had struggled with despair for days before learning that rescuers had 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 8 and 10.
Rescue teams used a telescopic camera to stay in constant contact with Gil Flores and passed water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft during the final three days. Maria Paz Campos, a veteran firefighter from Chile, spoke to him throughout the operation and tried to keep him calm in the final hours. In a video released by Chilean firefighters before the rescue, Gil Flores is seen drawing while Campos gently tells him to look at the camera and 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,” she told him.
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez marked the rescue in a post on X, at a time when her government has faced criticism from many Venezuelans over what they describe as an inadequate response to the crisis. “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.
The building collapsed after two back-to-back earthquakes on June 24 measuring 7.2 and 7.5. The shallow tremors damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela, leaving more than 2,200 people dead and more than 11,000 injured, with La Guaira state the worst-hit area. Against that backdrop, the rescue of Gil Flores became a brief but powerful sign of hope.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
