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The View From Above
The earthquake that experts spent decades warning about finally struck Venezuela, in 2026 of all years, almost seven months after the spectacular extraction of Nicolas Maduro. Beyond the magnitude of the devastation, the tragedy reveals the extent to which the population has been left to its own devices by a State that lacks the capacity to manage the crisis.
Delcy Rodriguez declared a State of Emergency and appointed a task force led by a National Guard general, but she waited more than 24 hours to mobilize resources toward the most impacted area, the coastal city close to Caracas in La Guaira State, where dozens of tall residential buildings collapsed, and thousands of people are missing. The absence of FANB and of the government in general is under heavy scrutiny, and it’s not just a social media narrative, as a PSUV source says: it’s true that only a few soldiers and police officers are helping, because a deliberate decision was made in the government to keep the armed forces in the barracks.
This is not the first time Venezuela has been hit by an earthquake or a weather disaster. The population remembers that the armed forces were the main institutional presence on the ground, besides the civil protection services and the always scarce fire corps. The military usually appeared to impose order, build provisional bridges, coordinate engineering solutions and assist healthcare personnel with logistics and security. That started to change in December 1999, after that infamous day when the current Constitution was approved in a referendum. Back then, a politically-militant army took over Vargas (now La Guaira)—the same state that last Wednesday took most of the damage from the earthquakes—, violating human rights and helping Hugo Chavez show in real time what the equation caudillo-ejercito-pueblo meant.
Now, at the other end of the rise-and-decline arc of chavismo, the FANB that in 1999 sold itself as the most powerful and generous component of the Bolivarian Revolution is naked in front of the population as a force that only mobilizes when it comes to repressing protests. Deprived of its operational capability, corrupted and demoralized, the same FANB which was unable to shoot down a single US aircraft on January 3 is being insulted by a population that can almost see, in real time, people dying under the rubble while no one from the State comes to their rescue.
One aspect where the government has had a more visible role is in coordinating international assistance, and we should assume that comes with some degree of alignment with the Trump administration. In the videos coming from the Maiquetia airport tarmac, we can see more Venezuelan military officers than in the disaster sites, as they salute their counterparts from several countries that are coming to help. With the military takeover of La Guaira announced today, FANB should start to manage the disaster area and show itself.
However, this time will be different. Opposite to Chavez, who had the luxury of refusing US help during the 1999 tragedy, Delcy Rodriguez not only accepted but thanked the considerable assistance sent by the governments of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, whom she said had talked to, the Dominican Republic’s Luis Abinader, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa—even though Ecuador and Venezuela have no formal relationship since Maduro broke it off. These right-wing presidents are allies of the Trump administration, and with this disaster are forging ties with Venezuela that would have been unthinkable under Maduro, following the old traditions of diplomacy through emergency assistance. Even Israel is about to send a mission.
Only the Trump administration’s influence can explain such a turn in the foreign relations of the remains of the Bolivarian Revolution. Neither Chavez nor Maduro would have thought twice about rejecting help from ideological enemies during a disaster. Delcy Rodriguez, whose response to the crisis has been noticeably slow and ineffective, actually seems more interested in enlarging her list of new friends than in convincing ordinary Venezuelans that she can be reliable as a leader in times like these. This disaster is a test for her, but also to the US presence in Venezuela, around which the hopes ignited on January 3 had started to wane, given the lack of improvement in the economy from the ordinary citizen’s perspective.
On the other side, people will also assess what Maria Corina Machado and the opposition can really do. There are reports, perfectly credible, that chavismo is blocking opposition organizations from collecting emergency supplies in states like Merida and Carabobo. Vente Venezuela and other parties organized humanitarian aid for the impacted communities, but this is diluted in the ocean of private initiatives that are jumping in to compensate for the absence of a proper State response.
Just as January 3 did, this changes everything: the animus of the public, the political and economic actors, the debates on the myriad of solutions the country needs. All that we were expecting must be recalculated. It seems impossible to talk about elections right now, and Rodriguez will use reconstruction as an excuse to postpone that conversation. However, we don’t expect chavismo will be able to use the tragedy as an opportunity to reinforce their grasp on the population, as they did with the landslides of 1999 and the pandemic in 2020. What we are seeing in the streets of Caracas and La Guaira is a population mobilized to help their own, not only out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they know they cannot count on the chavista government to do it.
Countless political leaders in many countries have emerged strengthened from national tragedies and emergencies, either through the sheer force of nationalism or by showing exceptional leadership and competence. We expect the opposite will happen to chavismo and Delcy Rodríguez. The tragedy has and will continue to expose their incompetence, and their role in leaving the State without resources to help the population. However, it is also unlikely that Venezuelan society, as angry as they are with their government, can carry more influence on the nation’s course, as long as the repressive apparatus and laws remain in place, and the US remains uninterested in accelerating a democratic transition.
The economic impact of the disaster is yet to be determined. So far, energy facilities and critical infrastructure, save for the runway in Maiquetia Airport, appeared to have been spared. But the impact on industrial facilities, both public and private, remains to be assessed. The business guild reports that there is no critical structural damage in the main malls. In any case, the economic recovery Delcy Rodriguez was counting on to improve her political future suddenly became more difficult. We expect Rodríguez to try to leverage the earthquake to push the US to allow multilateral banks to start giving out loans to Venezuela again. Reconstruction, especially in La Guaira, will take several years—a time horizon that doesn’t interest Rodríguez, who is more interested in short-term cash to bring inflation and the exchange rate under control, and not in infrastructure projects that will be ready to be inaugurated once chavismo is likely out of power. Even if Rodríguez tried to enact a true reconstruction plan, she will have the same problem we have been warning about for months: she doesn’t have enough capable or qualified staff to properly design and implement good public policies, or review and finalize public-private partnerships, much less carry out the ambitious reforms the US is demanding.
An invisible army
The latest official update from Delcy Rodríguez’s administration indicates that at least 920 people have died, while tens of thousands remain missing after the June 24th earthquake.
Initial rescue efforts have been limited, relying largely on civilians unwilling to abandon their neighbors, volunteer rescue teams, and local fire brigades, many of whom have been clearing debris from collapsed residential blocks with their bare hands and little or no specialized equipment.
Rodríguez’s administration has so far mounted only a minimal response. Most notably, the Venezuelan Armed Forces have yet to participate significantly in rescue operations, as military units have reportedly been ordered to remain in their barracks until further notice. The reasons behind this decision remain unclear, even to government sources, and the lack of action is fueling speculation inside the regime about possible distrust between Rodríguez and the military high command. Earlier today Rodríguez said the La Guaira State—the most affected—would be militarized, but it’s too early to tell what that would involve. By noon on Friday, June 26, roads to and from La Guaira were busy with civilians seeking to help and bring supplies on their own, or going there to try to locate their relatives.
Regime sources believe the military’s absence from rescue operations is likely linked to the limited logistical capacity and diminished operational readiness of the armed forces, reflecting the broader unpreparedness of the Venezuelan state to respond to a disaster of this magnitude. Regardless of the underlying reasons, the decision makes both Rodríguez’s government and the Venezuelan military appear not only weak, but also profoundly negligent to the population. Furthermore, there are countless news reports and social media posts circulating of public officers obstructing rescue and charitable efforts: PSUV mayors forbidding civilians to create collections centers for food and supplies; military officers turning away volunteer doctors; disaster rescue workers from the public Civilian Protection agency having to stand around doing nothing for eight hours waiting for a public deployment event with authorities; and collection centers set up by María Corina Machado’s Vente party being forcibly disbanded.
So far, beyond sporadic public updates and videos instructing the distribution of aid to affected areas, Rodríguez’s response has largely been limited to thanking foreign leaders for dispatching humanitarian assistance to Venezuela.
Significant international rescue contingents have already begun arriving from more than 17 countries, bringing much-needed expertise, search-and-rescue capabilities, and heavy machinery. Their arrival suggests that more substantial progress may be possible in the coming hours.
The international humanitarian response appears, nonetheless, poorly coordinated due to the absence of a functioning national emergency framework capable of establishing immediate priorities and supporting incoming foreign teams. This is hardly coincidental; rather, it reflects the near-total dismantlement of Venezuela’s emergency response infrastructure after decades of corruption, state mismanagement, and Chavismo’s increasingly hands-off approach to governance. Rescue teams arriving in Venezuela are confronting not only the destruction caused by the earthquakes, but also a severely weakened state that lacks the capacity to guarantee hospitals and shelters with running water or a stable electricity supply, let alone the infrastructure required to provide adequate care for the thousands still trapped beneath the rubble.
Alongside support on the ground, NGOs and UN entities in the country are also expected to receive substantial financial assistance from international donors in the coming days. The United States, through the State Department, has already committed an initial USD 150 million in humanitarian aid to NGOs and the UN –not directly to the Venezuelan government–, adding to the USD 200 million pledged by the International Monetary Fund, as well as smaller contributions from institutions including the Spanish government, the Vatican, and the CAF Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
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