[AP]
[AP]

Recovery efforts following a powerful earthquake in Venezuela have been severely hampered by fuel shortages and a lack of heavy equipment. Despite holding the world's largest proven oil reserves, the country has run so short of gasoline that government-owned excavators have ground to a halt, forcing rescue workers to search for survivors with their bare hands and shovels.

According to CNN, excavators at the rescue site in La Guaira, in northern Venezuela — the area hardest hit by the quake — ran out of fuel and stopped operating Tuesday local time.

An excavator operator working at the scene told CNN, "There's no gasoline to put in."

Heavy machinery such as excavators is essential for clearing rubble from collapsed buildings, but with fuel supplies exhausted, rescue workers and residents have been digging through concrete debris with pickaxes, shovels and their bare hands.

A shortage of equipment has compounded the difficulties at the rescue sites.

Hassel Mendoza, an engineer who rushed back from Florida to search for his family, said rescuers "wasted precious time looking for the right tools" because no equipment was available to cut through steel reinforcement bars.

Crime has also broken out amid the chaos. Local police arrested four civil servants who had been participating in rescue operations on charges of stealing valuables from the disaster sites.

Local observers say the disorder at the rescue sites points not merely to a failure of disaster response but to a broader collapse of the country's entire state system.

Political commentator Carmen Beatriz Fernandez criticized the situation, saying "this catastrophe is the result of a state that has focused all its capacity on repression and propaganda."

She argued that more than two decades of populist policies and governance centered on regime survival are the root causes of the current crisis.

Venezuela has pursued what is known as Chavismo — a brand of populism — from the era of former President Hugo Chavez, who came to power in 1999, through to the current administration of President Nicolas Maduro.

Chavez channeled vast oil revenues into public housing, healthcare and other welfare projects aimed at expanding his political base.

After Chavez died in 2013, the Maduro government maintained the same policy direction, and the country's economic situation deteriorated sharply.

Venezuela's gross domestic product shrank by 75 percent between 2013 and 2021, and roughly one in four Venezuelans is reported to have left the country.

Against that backdrop, criticism of the government's inadequate earthquake response has been mounting, and public frustration is growing.

Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who recently visited the affected areas, was met with angry chants of "get out" from residents at the scene.

The government, however, has maintained that its disaster response has been adequate.

National Assembly Speaker Jorge Rodriguez said the government had launched "a new system for deploying volunteers according to priorities."

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello also urged citizens to trust the government and cooperate with its efforts.

Experts say the earthquake has exposed not just a natural disaster but the simultaneous unraveling of years of accumulated economic hardship, crumbling national infrastructure and a fragile administrative system. With the window to find survivors narrowing by the hour, observers say the Venezuelan government's capacity to respond — alongside international support — faces a critical test.


rainbow@heraldcorp.com