Miracle: Man Rescued Alive After Eight Days Trapped in Venezuela Earthquake Rubble

A man has been rescued alive after being trapped for eight days in the rubble of a building that collapsed during the powerful twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela last week. The dramatic rescue prompted hundreds of relief workers at the scene to cheer and embrace one another. The rescued man, identified as Hernan Gil, worked as a security guard. With the death toll approaching 2,300 and many people still listed as missing, Gil’s rescue is being considered a miracle. On Thursday local time, Gil was carried to an ambulance on a stretcher following a complex and lengthy evacuation operation from the seven-storey building where he worked in the Catia La Mar area, a coastal zone almost completely destroyed by the 24 June earthquake. ‘This is truly a miracle,’ said Gil’s wife, Gusbiman Gonzalez, as rescue workers struggled to extract her husband from the debris. Rescue teams from seven countries—Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico—worked tirelessly for three days to reach Gil’s location. Rescue workers provided Gil with more than 10 litres of water through a hose to keep him hydrated and installed another hose to supply him with oxygen. In the final stage of the evacuation operation, around 30 workers laboured in the collapsed building’s car park to clear debris, whilst two other rescuers dug a three-metre-long tunnel. ‘It was not easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,’ said Cristian Vera, leader of the Chilean rescue team. Although there have been some remarkable rescues about a week after the earthquake struck, hopes of finding more survivors are fading. The focus is now shifting to survival efforts for those who lived through the quake. Many Venezuelans have lost their homes, are short of increasingly scarce food and water supplies, and hospitals are overwhelmed treating patients, with experts warning of the risk of disease outbreaks. According to data from the United States space agency, NASA, nearly 60,000 buildings are estimated to have been damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. The President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, announced on Wednesday that the death toll had risen to at least 2,295. More than 11,000 others were injured. Rodriguez also reported that nearly 13,000 people have lost their homes, with many forced to sleep in tents erected on streets, in parks, and on vacant land. Tens of thousands of others remain unaccounted for.