The View From Above
Today, July 24, Venezuela usually commemorates the birthdate of Simón Bolívar with a national holiday. It was one month ago–also during a national holiday–that the twin earthquakes hit, and relatives of the dead are still digging up the rubble to find the remains of their loved ones. Grief is now stronger than anger in the disaster area, where foreign teams are helping local personnel to manage the immense tasks of identifying corpses and removing debris, while the rest of the country continues to deal with everyday worries such as the exchange rate and the poor state of public services. Even if the explosion of social unrest some said was about to happen did not occur, we see signs that the chavista regime is aware that the earthquakes worsened the population’s mood, sinking further their already low levels of support.
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