Months after Venezuela’s earthquakes, families cling to hope in search of loved ones
By CNN
La Guaira, Venezuela (CNN) — The deafening roar of excavators echoes through the rubble, drowning out all other sounds. The midday heat is stifling, even more so for Eilyn Solano, who has been sheltering in a tent for over 100 days. But she endures the discomfort in the hopes of finding her youngest son, 11-year-old Jhoniel José Morales, who disappeared after the collapse of OPP 26, one of the Venezuelan government’s social housing projects, following the twin earthquakes that devastated the country on June 24.
Eilyn hasn’t left the site for a single day. She eats and sleeps in the small tent set up just meters from where the slabs fell. From there, she has meticulously monitored the count of bodies recovered from the towers, convinced that Jhoniel is still there.
On August 24, two months after the earthquakes, officials released their final death toll: 6,509. But the government still hasn’t published an official tally of missing persons, nor has it responded to CNN’s inquiries on the matter, so residents are keeping their own counts.
According to Eilyn, search efforts have continued thanks to the solidarity of the community and the logistical support of affected families, who have provided water, ice, and electrolytes to search teams.
So far, the Solano family has managed to recover the remains of more than 17 people, but there’s still no trace of Jhoniel.
His family believes he had gone to play at a nearby sports field, where one of the towers collapsed.
Video from a security camera showed him descending the apartment’s stairs on June 24 at 3:59 p.m., a couple of hours before the earthquakes. One of his sisters, María Yailén, 15, survived the tremors, but the other, Mariangel, 12, did not. Her body was found on the third floor, outside the apartment of her grandmother, who was looking after her that day. The grandmother was rescued alive hours later.
On September 26, search teams excavated the area around the sports field, but did not find the boy.
“Not on the field side, not at the entrance, and certainly not in the hallways,” Eilyn’s sister Chiquinquirá said. What they did find was the security camera control room and, inside, a disc with a second video in which the family claims the boy can be seen leaving the building just minutes before the earthquake.
Once they confirmed that the boy had left the building, they began to search in streets, collection centers and cemeteries such as “La Esperanza” in Catia la Mar, where there is an area designated for unidentified burials.
“Among all the possibilities there is a glimmer of hope, and that is why we continue the search until the end, until we obtain some kind of answer about the whereabouts of the child,” Chiquinquirá added.
The Solanos, who survived the deadly Vargas mudslide in 1999, say they won’t give up until they find their boy. With the support of relatives, friends and volunteers, they have organized a search network, traveling by motorcycle to medical centers, morgues and shelters between La Guaira and Caracas.
They’re also calling on authorities and the community to continue sharing Jhoniel’s image and to provide any information that could help locate him.
‘Until there is a body, there is no death’
In parts of La Guaira, where dozens of buildings collapsed, only emptiness and silence remain. But in some areas, there is a larger military presence working to clear rubble — a stark contrast to the initial hours of the tragedy, when families claimed that there were no officials present. The government of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, however, has defended the response of rescue teams.
At the Residencias Caribe housing complex, families, firefighters and volunteers have set up a bulletin board to keep track of who likely remains under the concrete.
Nayibe Geromes searches for her mother Leida Mata, with whom she last spoke roughly six hours before the quakes. With the two basements flooded with seawater and the internal structure destroyed, Nayibe faces a harsh reality: “At this point, I don’t expect to find a complete body, but rather skeletal remains.” Nevertheless, she says that “until there is a body, there is no death.”
Beside her, Angie Valentina Sojo Andarcia, is searching for her husband. When the earthquake struck, Angie was in Caracas at a doctor’s appointment with her daughter while talking on the phone with her 50-year-old husband. During the call, she heard glass breaking before the line went dead.
Recently, she managed to get a volunteer foundation to clear away debris, reaching the area where her kitchen once stood. She also arranged for her husband’s brother to be brought from Táchira state for DNA testing at a morgue, to identify any potential remains — but so far, they haven’t had any luck.
Angie says she is unaware of any official channels for filing reports regarding missing persons.
Complaints in the face of uncertainty
Ronnie Boquier, a legal coordinator of the non-governmental human rights organization Cofavic, said the situation in La Guaira state has been marked by “information opacity, violation of victims’ rights and serious failures in the execution of international protocols for identification and handling of corpses.”
In response to a CNN inquiry, the Ombudsman’s Office said they maintain open channels to receive reports of missing persons with the aim of identifying rights violations and providing guidance and legal support to families.
They said they have telephone and in-person support lines; are deployed on the ground; and are in contact with victims and their relatives. They said they have received and processed more than 100 complaints or requests for guidance regarding alleged rights violations, and they maintain communication with search and rescue authorities and other officials to monitor these cases.
They claim reports of missing children and young people have been fully processed and investigations concluded with the discovery of their bodies under the rubble.
CNN has contacted the Attorney General’s Office; the Ministry of Popular Power for Interior Relations, Justice and Peace; the National Service of Medicine and Forensic Sciences; and the Scientific Criminal and Forensic Investigations Corps for more information about their protocols and response to complaints.
Cofavic has reviewed several complaints from families, and says that in at least five cases it detected critical failures in the chain of custody at the La Guaira silos, where a makeshift morgue is operating. It says families had to review between 400 and 600 digital photographs of corpses in advanced states of decomposition, without any technical or psychological support. Upon inspecting corresponding body bags, the remains in these cases did not match those of their loved ones, according to the complaints. This has sparked fears that some bodies may have been mistakenly given to the wrong families.
“The state has the means, or should have the means, and if it doesn’t, it has to do everything possible to find the resources, international aid, everything that is technically necessary to be able to provide a response,” Boquier said.
He explained that while official tallies ended on August 24, independent and international estimates put the death toll at 10,000 to 20,000.
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