"It was like a horror movie."
For Caracas resident Maria Alejandra, the Venezuelan capital she knew as a bustling city full of life suddenly looked like something out of an apocalyptic film.
Two powerful earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude struck Venezuela within 39 seconds of each other shortly after 6 pm local time on Thursday (3.30 am IST Friday), damaging buildings in the capital, Caracas, and triggering tsunami warnings across parts of the Caribbean.
The twin quakes were the most powerful to hit the Latin American country in over a century. While authorities have reported 32 deaths and 700 injuries so far, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated that the final death toll could range from 10,000 to 100,000.
Caracas was shrouded in dust as people desperately searched through rubble and debris for loved ones and familiar faces they had been with just moments earlier, amid the trail of destruction left by twin earthquakes.
"There was a cloud of smoke that wouldn't let us see. And when we went downstairs, the scene was like a horror movie. We had to climb over the rubble and everything," she told international news agency Reuters.
The city was filled with scenes of people rushing out of buildings and running helter-skelter through the streets of Caracas to escape collapsing structures and falling debris. After the series of earthquakes -- including at least 20 aftershocks ranging between magnitudes 4.9 and 6.4 -- subsided, the city was left reeling.
Buildings had collapsed, cracks appeared on many structures as well as on roads and highways, and distraught residents gathered in the streets as city officials, police and disaster response teams raced against time to clear the rubble in search of survivors trapped beneath.
The back-to-back quakes shook large parts of the country and caused heavy damage in Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira. Scientists warned that the scale of the destruction could lead to heavy casualties, but authorities had not released an official toll for deaths or injuries.
In Altamira, one of Caracas’s most affluent neighbourhoods, rescue workers, volunteers and worried relatives gathered outside collapsed residential buildings while excavators and emergency teams searched for survivors.
Among them was 61-year-old Jos Morillo, who rode across the city on his motorbike after learning that several members of his family had been inside a building known as Residencias Obelisco when the earthquakes struck, reported The Guardian.
“I came here riding my motorbike as fast as I could,” Morillo told The Guardian. “My brother, my son and nephews are all inside. I have faith. I believe in God a lot. I hope everyone is OK – but uncertainty is torture.”
As night fell, there were brief signs of hope amid the devastation. At about 9 pm (local time), rescue teams pulled a teenage girl alive from the wreckage and carried her into an ambulance. “It’s my niece! It’s my niece!” Morillo shouted as she was brought out, reported The Guardian.