A dog has been rescued alive after spending five days trapped under rubble following the devastating 7.5-magnitude earthquake that struck Venezuela. The stranded pet was pulled from a collapsed building in Caraballeda, a city in the worst-hit region of La Guaira, by a search and rescue team from El Salvador after they heard barking coming from the wreckage.
Rescue footage shows emotional reunion
In footage of the rescue, the dog can be heard yelping as workers in hard hats and hi-vis jackets scramble over twisted metal and broken concrete to reach inside a large gap. One of the rescuers ventures down, pulls the dog to safety, and the dog instantly begins licking his face, sparking applause from a relieved crowd. A vet is then seen feeding the hungry pup using a pipette.
Owner Gabriela Alves, who had spent days searching for her lost dog, told reporters: "I thought he wasn't going to survive and everything was crushed, everything, everything. So it's a miracle. It's a miracle that he is alive."
Other remarkable survivals reported
The dog rescue comes as tales of remarkable survival continue to emerge from the devastated country, over a week after the deadly twin earthquakes. In another part of La Guaira, rescue workers pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from a collapsed basement, ending a gruelling 100-hour operation to extract him. Hernán Alberto Gil Flores emerged to safety covered in dust on a stretcher after being trapped since June 24 under rubble in the basement of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping centre.
Rescuers first made contact with Gil Flores over the weekend and spent the majority of this week working to free him, navigating a highly unstable structure, torrential rain and persistent aftershocks to dig a tunnel towards him.
Government response criticized
Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodríguez hit back at criticism over her government's response to the disaster. Survivors claimed there was no sign of life-saving rescue equipment promised by the state in the crucial 72-hour rescue window after the earthquakes struck, with some saying they were forced to search through the rubble for loved ones themselves by hand until international aid arrived.
At a press conference, Rodríguez said: "We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately. To politicise a humanitarian tragedy like this - when the Venezuelan government and its authorities have spared no effort, public, private, national, or international - is disgraceful."
Death toll rises
At least 2,295 people are estimated to have lost their lives as a result of the earthquakes, with the death toll expected to rise further as more wreckage is searched.
