EARTHQUAKE RECOVERY · VENEZUELA
Key Facts
- —The country Venezuela was struck by twin earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 on 24 June 2026. La Guaira, on the coast north of Caracas, was the worst-hit state.
- —What happened Dozens gathered on Friday 2 October for a vigil and mass at collapsed housing blocks in Caraballeda, La Guaira, to mark 100 days since the quakes, EFE reported.
- —The numbers The children’s rights group Cecodap counts 144 children and adolescents still missing as of 1 October, from 417 initial reports. Officially, at least 6,509 people died (government, 24 August).
- —What it means for you Families still searching have no updated official list of the missing. The government has not revised that figure since its 24 August report, Monitoreamos reported.
- —Still open Whether the government publishes updated counts of the dead and missing, broken down by age, as Cecodap and other groups demand.
Cecodap, a Venezuelan children’s rights group, counts 144 children missing 100 days after the twin earthquakes of 24 June. On Friday evening, families gathered in La Guaira to mourn the people they lost.
The vigil was held beside the ruins of the OPPE housing blocks in Caraballeda, one of the largest complexes to collapse. Candles, flowers, toys and photographs of the dead filled the site, El Estímulo reported.
A vigil among the ruins
Verónica Rondón, 50, lost two relatives in the quakes. “We are full of sadness, of daily longing, of fear,” she told the Spanish news agency EFE.
She prayed that those who left without saying goodbye would “find the light”. She also asked that nobody forget the many people still beneath the rubble.
Father Juan Ramón de Andrés, a priest from Segovia in Spain, led the mass. The vigil was organised by the group Haz de Luz, El Nacional and Monitoreamos reported.
“It is not easy to find words for someone who has lost everything,” he said. Rubble has been cleared in parts of La Guaira, but clean-up is still pending in many other areas.
144 children missing, three months on
Cecodap presented its third report on the quakes’ impact on children on 1 October, Efecto Cocuyo and El Estímulo reported. With its journalism arm, Agencia PANA, it had documented 3,267 cases of affected children and adolescents by 24 September.
The group calls that figure a documented floor, not an estimate of the total. Of 417 children first reported missing, 201 were later found dead and 144 are still missing.
In 40 of the 144 cases the parents are missing too, Cecodap said. Eight missing children lost both parents, leaving uncles, grandparents or siblings to carry on the search.
Cecodap counts 483 children and adolescents among the dead, 469 of them in La Guaira. Another 1,811 have moved with their families to other states.
Some children found alive
There has been some relief. Telephone follow-ups confirmed that 37 children listed as missing were found alive, El Estímulo reported.
About 78 percent of them are back in the care of a surviving mother or father. “It is an emergency that persists. It is an emergency that mutates,” said Agencia PANA coordinator Indira Rojas.
Cecodap coordinator Carlos Trapani warned that exceptional conditions risk being accepted as everyday life. Poor housing, missed schooling and exhausted carers must not become the new normal, the group said.
No official count of the missing
The government’s last report, on 24 August, put the death toll at no fewer than 6,509. It has not updated its figure for the missing since then, El Nacional and Monitoreamos reported.
A citizen initiative, Desaparecidos Terremoto Venezuela, has logged reports of more than 29,000 people whose whereabouts are unknown. That tally has not been independently verified.
Transparencia Venezuela, an anti-corruption group, says official opacity prevents reliable data on the toll, El Nacional reported on 1 October. Cecodap wants figures broken down by age, gender and type of harm.
Thousands still lack a home, UN agencies say, as set out in Venezuela 4.8 Tremor Hits East, Housing Gap Persists. The wider cost is tracked in Venezuela’s Earthquake Recovery Bill Nears US$20 Billion.
What Is Not Yet Known
It is unclear how many of the 144 missing children may yet be found alive. Cecodap stresses that its count covers only the cases it could verify.
The government has not said when it will publish updated figures for the dead and the missing. Nor has it given an age breakdown of the victims.
Sources: El Nacional (EFE), 3 October 2026; Monitoreamos, 3 October 2026; Efecto Cocuyo, 2 October 2026; El Estímulo, 1 October 2026; El Estímulo, 3 October 2026; El Nacional, 1 October 2026.
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