In Venezuela, silence has become a rescue tool : NPR

DON GONYEA, HOST:

We start today’s program in the Venezuelan port of La Guaira on the Caribbean coast, which is now at the heart of one of the country’s worst natural disasters. The city bore the brunt of Wednesday’s brutal double earthquakes, which killed nearly 1,500 people across the capital and surrounding areas in northern Venezuela. Thousands are still unaccounted for. Rescue teams and volunteers continue to search through the rubble, but hopes of finding more survivors are now fading as time passes. NPR’s Eyder Peralta is there in La Guaira. Eyder, you’ve spent the day traveling along this destroyed coastline. What have you seen?

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: I mean, it’s just total devastation, Don. I mean, last night, we were here late, until the sundown. And we were in front of a building, and there was just this mad rush to try and find people who were making noise from under rubble. And really, it was an ad hoc job. They were tying pieces of concrete onto cars and just trying to move them with cars. And then every once in a while, they would tell everybody to be quiet. The motorcycles would turn off their engines, and they would all go quiet. And the rescuers would scream, if you’re alive, please make some noise.

The people inside had been screaming for days, but last night, all the rescuers kept hearing was just rustling sounds. They told them, if you’re alive, use two rocks and smash them together so we can hear them. The good news is one official told us that from the building that I’m standing in front of right now – which we were here last night too – they did rescue one person this morning alive.

GONYEA: We spoke to you 24 hours ago in La Guaira, and I’m struck. It was so noisy in the background when we were speaking. I could hear backhoes, motorcycles everywhere. It is so much quieter today.

PERALTA: It is, and there’s a reason for that. Basically, they need to hear if anybody’s still alive. So what they’ve told – you’ll hear me kind of whisper here – what they’ve told the motorcycles is they have to turn off their engines when they’re going through any collapsed building. And so the motorcyclists turn off their engines. They walk through. And they tell you to be quiet and actually not even to move because the footsteps cause noises, and they’re just desperately trying to find out if anybody is still in those buildings. And so that’s why it’s so quiet today.

GONYEA: So what’s the challenge now for rescue teams and, I guess, recovery teams in the areas that are the worst affected?

PERALTA: There’s some parts that are totally OK, and then there are some parts where it’s just completely devastated. And it’s a massive disaster. There’s a lot of aid, but it’s just not enough. Today, we were in front of a 12-story building, and no one was there. No official rescuer was there. It was just the families of the people who lived in that building who were digging through the rubble, and it’s just with their hands.

GONYEA: And what are people telling you both about the official response but also just the scale of the damage that they’re confronted with?

PERALTA: I think they understand that this is so massive that their government can’t properly deal with it. You know, one interesting scene – we were at an apartment building today, and people were going into half-destroyed apartment buildings to try and rescue their things because they said that they don’t trust that the government will have their back, and so they’re going to need them. I spoke to one woman, Jaymarie Blanco (ph), who told me that she had lost her home in a 1999 landslide. She said she had built this apartment with so much love, and she was taking out her couch from her apartment, and she broke down. Let’s listen to a bit of what she said.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE DRIVING BY)

JAYMARIE BLANCO: (Crying, speaking Spanish).

PERALTA: And what she’s saying there is, “this is not easy.” She says, “there’s been so much suffering, so much suffering.”

GONYEA: That’s NPR’s Eyder Peralta in La Guaira, Venezuela. Thank you, Eyder. Take care.

PERALTA: Thank you, Don.

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