A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #471 - International - EARTHQUAKE IN VENEZUELA. - Seismicity and social devastation (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The double earthquake of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck Venezuela, 
caused by the Caribbean Plate sliding along the South American Plate, 
highlighted the country's structural vulnerability. Damage was 
concentrated primarily on the central coast, in the state of La Guaira, 
and to a lesser extent in the capital Caracas, in affluent areas such as 
Chacao and Altamira, where casualties were relatively few. Conversely, 
the coastal urban areas of Catia La Mar, Playa Grande, and Caraballeda 
suffered the most severe consequences, with a current toll of over 5,000 
deaths, more than 16,000 injured, and many missing. Venezuela's main 
airport, including its runways, has been declared unusable, and the 
country's largest port has also been damaged. Provisional estimates 
indicate that over 850 large buildings have suffered irreparable 
structural damage, and approximately 200 housing complexes have 
completely collapsed, almost exclusively affecting the poorest segments 
of the population.

This is not the first catastrophic event to hit Venezuela's central 
coast in recent times. In 1999, less than a year after Chávez came to 
power, continuous torrential rains in mid-December saturated the 
mountain slopes on both sides, hitting the city of Caracas on one side 
and, more dramatically, the entire central coast on the other. Thousands 
of simultaneous landslides, gigantic mudflows, and rockfalls swept 
violently toward the sea, burying entire villages and causing between 
10,000 and 30,000 deaths, with approximately 100,000 displaced. In this 
sense, the current disaster is substantially different in its genesis, 
but comparable in its effects and causes: in the first case, the 
disaster was largely predictable in terms of hydrogeological 
instability, and responsibility fell on the Fourth Republic 
(fundamentally Christian Democrat), whose political model, based on real 
estate speculation, had allowed decades of uncontrolled urbanization of 
riverbeds and steep or unstable areas, especially for tourism. In the 
case of the current disaster, although its predictability was relatively 
limited, its effects have been magnified by the urban planning 
management of the Fifth Republic over the last twenty years (Chavista 
government): the main similarity lies in the continued administrative 
irresponsibility, with both regimes ignoring the geological 
characteristics of the territory to favor the former's profit-driven 
agenda, and the latter's immediate political consensus. Indeed, it was 
precisely on the reconstruction of the towns destroyed in 1999 that the 
Chavista government relied to consolidate its power, responding to the 
housing demand of much of the poor population through the "Gran Misión 
Vivienda" (Great Living Mission). According to official figures, the 
"Gran Misión Vivienda" (Great Living Mission) built and delivered more 
than 5 million homes and apartments in communal buildings through 
agreements with friendly states, such as Turkey, without adequate 
geological surveys and, above all, without monitoring the materials used 
(the "cardboard houses," as they were called).

In any case, the government moved quickly after the earthquake, 
activating emergency services, the army, and the fire department, and 
involving all ministerial staff and the network of city councils. 
Doctors, nurses, NGOs, churches, and universities also responded 
immediately, which created some confusion and coordination problems, as 
many set up collection points for food, clothing, and medicine, even 
before the lists of essential goods were made public and the flow of 
supplies was organized. However, within a week, while people were still 
digging through the rubble in search of survivors, hundreds of camps for 
displaced people, coordinated by local and Caracas police, were set up, 
while part of the army patrolled the coastline. The international 
response was massive, with aid for the search for survivors and medical 
services arriving from various parts of the world or organized by the UN 
itself, in addition to numerous state and private donations. 
Unfortunately, the US financial blockade prevents the normal flow of 
funds for the purchase of medicines and even the import of heavy 
machinery needed to clear the rubble.

The United States government's intervention fits into this context. It 
must be said that it took action the day after the disaster, moving a 
military vessel equipped with helicopters from Panama. It also allocated 
$300 million in humanitarian aid, a modest amount, and it was drawn from 
Venezuelan oil revenues frozen in foreign accounts. These resources 
belong to the Venezuelan state, but control of which was taken away from 
the country after Maduro's kidnapping and the placing of Venezuelan oil 
exports under its "protection." Technicians and senior officials from 
Trump's administration also arrived, and are taking charge of reopening 
the country's main airport and, as far as is known, monitoring 
high-level Venezuelan government meetings and decisions, ensuring that 
the flow of oil to the US continues, given that the earthquake did not 
affect the extraction industry. The White House's political objective 
appears to be to take over the reconstruction effort, establishing a 
protectorate-style administration, particularly with regard to the 
economy, while attempting to normalize the local conflict. This strategy 
also includes Trump's ban on opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from 
returning to the country. This is intended to keep the current internal 
political balance frozen, allowing the US administration to directly 
negotiate territorial governance without conflict or uncomfortable local 
mediation outside the Chavista government. Indeed, the most extremist 
factions on the right are attempting to exploit the humanitarian crisis 
for purely electoral purposes through radio, private television, and 
digital channels, launching campaigns to discredit the work done so far 
by the Chavista government. This is intended to carve out a political 
role for themselves and accelerate the transition to power promised by 
Trump and Rubio through elections before the end of the year.

It is thus clear that both the causes of earthquakes and their 
consequences must be analyzed through complex interpretative models 
that, evidently based on the geological aspects of the phenomenon, take 
into account social, economic, political, and, above all, cultural 
levels derived from the strong relationships each community has with its 
territory, from which memory and identity are derived (the time marked 
by disasters, for example). The fundamental question to ask, and which 
will be explored in depth in the next issue of Sicilia Libertaria, 
concerns the very nature of disasters: are they natural events or 
structurally social and political processes?

Francisco López

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