Venezuela quake death toll nears 1,500 as rescue work goes on

Rescue teams raced to find more survivors ​of the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, with signs of life bringing occasional relief to a grim quest to whittle down a list of tens of thousands missing, Reuters reported.

The ‌death toll from the twin earthquakes neared 1,500 people on Sunday as foreign rescue teams poured into La Guaira, the hardest-hit state of a country long mired in a deep political and economic crisis.

Dozens of buildings collapsed into piles of sand and rubble in the coastal state, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Caracas.

"Rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing. Today (Sunday) we have recovered people alive and, therefore, operations are not being suspended. We always maintain hope," said interim President Delcy Rodriguez, after announcing a presidential commission that would determine the habitability of buildings.

Flanked by ​several of her ministers, Rodriguez said school classes would be suspended for one more week and the electricity supply in La Guaira had been restored to 75%.

Earlier, Jorge Rodriguez, the acting president's brother and president of the National Assembly, said the death toll rose by 20 people on Sunday to reach 1,450. He added that 3,150 people remained injured, ​12,721 had been displaced, and 774 buildings had collapsed.

"We are in critical hours, in crucial hours to continue rescuing lives and to build camps where those people who have lost their homes, or who cannot return, for whatever reason, ​to their residences can stay," he said.

Families and volunteers spent days pulling survivors and bodies from the rubble before the arrival of the more than 2,600 foreign rescue workers, often complaining of scant heavy equipment and a limited official presence, as hundreds of aftershocks deepened damage and kept residents on edge.

So far this weekend, the government said at least 33 people had been rescued by Saturday evening, including several children, while tens of thousands remained unaccounted for.