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When two major earthquakes struck Venezuela last month, it was clear that the damage would be severe and that the country’s road to recovery would be difficult.
Officials have confirmed more than 5,000 deaths, and 17,000 injuries.
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A recent report From the World Bank it has been found that about 18,000 are homeless, while the United States agency NASA has said that more than 58,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed.
A month after earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck South America, rescue workers are still searching for the missing, and questions remain about where much of the money needed to rebuild will come from.
How is Venezuela recovering from the earthquakes, what obstacles remain, and what role can the international community play? We will answer these questions in this short article.
How is the rescue operation?
After a major earthquake, the window for rescuing survivors is short. Support groups often talk about a 72-hour time frame to find the people missing or buried under the trash.
The United Nations Human Rights Office (OCHA) announced on July 8 that 6,462 people have been rescued.
A month after the earthquakes, recovery efforts have shifted dramatically to getting the bodies of friends and loved ones to rest.
“They have brought out a lot of dead people. And everyone, we have been shining like ours,” Laura Barrios, who is searching for the bodies of missing relatives in the coastal region of La Guaira, told BBC radio.
But as time goes on, some are losing hope of finding the remains of the missing.
“I’m at a loss for what to do. We went in with picks and shovels, and machines, but nothing. Because we were hoping to find the remains to pay tribute to the body that was with us before,” said Barrios.
Although the Venezuelan government has not released the number of missing people, the UN says the number could be as high as 51,000.
How much will a refund cost?
A recent report by the World Bank estimated the damage caused by the earthquakes at around $20bn, a huge sum for a country that was already in financial trouble before the disaster.
The total cost of renovations is likely to be high, especially if the rebuilding involves building maintenance efforts. The report said that the cost of “rebuilding properly”, as well as measures such as removing debris, could bring the cost of restoring the body to $50bn.
An early UN estimate put the recovery cost at $37bn.
If Venezuela is unable to rebuild quickly, this could have a negative impact on its long-term economy. The World Bank said that, without more public and private investment, gross domestic product could remain below pre-earthquake levels until 2036.
The country’s labor force is also expected to fall by 1 percent this year, and the UN humanitarian agency says 1.3 million people will need aid in the next six months.
Where would the money come from?
After the earthquakes on June 24, countries and international organizations pledged to support Venezuela in its recovery process.
The United States, which has exerted more influence on Venezuela’s government since the ouster of the country’s former president Nicolas Maduro in a coup in January, has said it will donate $300m for earthquake relief.
Earlier this month, former President Delcy Rodriguez announced that Venezuela had received $346m emergency funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help address people’s needs.
Organizations such as the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean have also said they are working to raise funds for the restoration, including from the private sector.
According to figures shared by the UN, the European Commission has provided $36.5m to aid recovery, as well as $17m from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund and $9m from Germany.
But funding for the UN social support system it remains below the $931m needed in 2026 alone. According to the international organization, only 39 percent of this target was met, with a shortfall of about $566m.
What can the US do?
The role of the US in Venezuela’s recovery has come under intense scrutiny, given the power that President Donald Trump’s administration has exerted in the country since the ouster of Maduro in January.
Rodriguez, Maduro’s successor and vice president, has overseen a series of reforms that have brought Caracas closer to what the US a have threatened to return to.
Some experts have also warned that remaining US economic sanctions, which kept the country prosperous for years before the earthquake, could hamper efforts to direct money and aid to Venezuela.
The Trump administration announced after the earthquakes that it would support some sanctions to help with the recovery, but US lawmakers have called on the government to do more.
“The people of Venezuela deserve full support after the devastating earthquakes of June 24,” Democratic Congressman Chuy Garcia said in a social media post earlier this month, calling on the Trump administration to “remove the sanctions on Venezuela and restore access to the fifth economy to support aid and recovery”.
What are some obstacles to recovery?
Civil society groups have warned that Venezuela’s current situation, from extreme poverty and impunity to government controls on information and hostility to humanitarian groups, could hamper recovery efforts. Advocates have called for the recovery of the body to be followed by political reform to reverse the regime’s repressive regime.
“The earthquakes did not cause the problem of Venezuela, but instead revealed it,” said Beatriz Borges, director of the Center of Justice and Peace (Cepaz), in a meeting on the effects of the earthquakes before the US Congress Human Rights Commission, according to the Washington office in Latin America (WOLA), a group that promotes rights.
“Venezuela’s civil society is one of the most important aspects of democracy in the country, a unique culture and social structure built on trust, local knowledge, cooperation, and access to people,” he said.
