Venezuela quake survivors await home safety checks

Venezuela's June 24 earthquakes have killed more than 4,000 people and left residents waiting to learn whether damaged homes can be repaired, while a UN office estimates almost $37 billion in material damage alone.

In La Lucha, a low-income area of Catia la Mar in La Guaira state, engineers and architects are inspecting homes and marking them with green, yellow or red stickers to show whether they are safe, need repairs or must be evacuated.

Officials said the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes left nearly 18,000 people homeless. They also said 190 buildings collapsed and another 856 were damaged. A NASA survey estimated that the number of damaged buildings could reach 58,000.

Morela Luna, whose partially collapsed home was not safe enough for inspectors to enter, said she wanted to rebuild rather than leave the place where she grew up. Nearby resident Juana Alfonzo and five relatives were sleeping in tents in their yard because of fears of another collapse, though she hoped her home could be saved.

Francisco Garces, Venezuela's transportation minister and head of a presidential commission on building habitability, said about 6,000 assessments had been carried out. He said repair and rehabilitation would follow, and that new homes were being built or upgraded for people whose homes were destroyed.

In Los Palos Grandes, a Caracas neighbourhood also hit by the quakes, residents questioned red warning signs on damaged buildings. Gustavo Duque, mayor of Chacao, said a red sign did not necessarily mean demolition, but did mean a building needed a technical review to determine whether it could be repaired.

Duque said about 1,000 of Chacao's 3,100 buildings had been inspected, and 25 were classified as red. In Caracas, part of an empty school previously marked red collapsed on July 3, causing no injuries.

The quakes also caused severe damage in La Guaira, where residents and business owners face uncertainty over work, income and rebuilding. Some activity has resumed in Maiquetia, La Guaira's economic hub, where shops have reopened.