Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela have cheered and embraced after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes.
With the official death toll nearing 2,300 and huge numbers of people still missing, the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle.
On Thursday, Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe.
"This is truly a miracle," Gil's wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, said as rescuers worked to rescue him.
Teams from seven countries — Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico — worked around the clock over three days to reach Gil.
They provided him with more than ten litres of water to keep him hydrated via a hose and installed a tube to provide him with oxygen.
Astounding rescues
During the final phase of the operation, about thirty people worked in the building's parking area to clear away debris, while two rescuers dug a three-metre tunnel.
"It wasn't easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located," Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team, said.
However, while there have been a few astounding rescues — a three-year-old boy was found on Tuesday six days after the quake — hope has faded of finding many more survivors.
The focus is now shifting to survival for those who escaped the quakes.
Many are homeless, food and water are becoming scarce and hospitals are stretched to the limit, with experts warning of the risk of disease outbreaks.
‘We lost everything, except our lives’
The two powerful quakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5, shattered entire neighbourhoods in oil-rich Venezuela, which has suffered decades of economic crisis that devastated infrastructure and health services.
Almost 60,000 buildings were likely damaged or destroyed, according to NASA data.
Venezuela's National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said on Wednesday that the number of deaths had risen to 2,295, and more than 11,000 people were injured.
He said almost 13,000 people had been left homeless — many of them sleeping in tents on the streets, parks and vacant lots.
Tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for.
Queues for aid are growing longer by the day, with many surviving on the goodwill of volunteers and donations from fellow citizens.
On a soccer field, Maria Arteaga, 33, a mother of four, prepared to sleep on Wednesday night in an improvised shelter made of tarps and a Venezuelan flag.
"We lost everything, except our lives. We're even barefoot," she said.
