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Venezuelan Defense Minister Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez and Foreign Minister Yvan Gil visited Turkish search and rescue teams working in La Guaira, the area hardest hit by twin earthquakes, as Venezuela began burying more than 1,700 victims and international teams continued efforts to find survivors.
Turkish search and rescue teams are continuing operations in La Guaira after the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24.
Lopez and Gil visited the Turkish teams in the city and met Türkiye's Ambassador to Caracas Naci Aydan Karamanoglu.
Lopez thanked the Turkish personnel for arriving from so far away in such a short time and said the operation showed strong training and organization.
"To be able to act so quickly in an emergency, to be able to organize so quickly, requires very good training and organization," Lopez told the Turkish team. "Of course, the fact that you came from across the ocean shows how well organized you are."
Lopez thanked the Turkish team for its work in La Guaira, where the greatest loss of life and property was reported.
"We are still at a moment when miracles can happen, that is, when we can save the living," he said. "I want to thank you for coming from so far away in such a short time."
The Turkish search and rescue team reminded Lopez that Venezuelan teams also took part in rescue work after the Feb. 6, 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye.
"In times of disaster, distances do not matter; what matters is brotherhood," the Turkish team said in response.
Karamanoglu briefed Lopez and Gil on the Turkish teams' work.
The U.S. military repaired and reopened a key seaport in the hardest-hit area on Monday, as the country began burying more than 1,700 victims of the twin earthquakes, with tens of thousands still missing.
Five days after powerful back-to-back earthquakes flattened entire neighborhoods, hopes of finding survivors were fading and the task of recovering the dead became more urgent.
The latest official count put the death toll at about 1,700, with 5,000 injured. The government has not announced an official number of missing people, while other estimates put the figure in the tens of thousands.
The Port of La Guaira reopened, where an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent saw a warehouse storing hundreds of unidentified bodies in white and black body bags, as well as several coffins. The USS Fort Lauderdale was docked and delivering aid.
Dozens of relatives from the devastated region waited outside the makeshift morgue for news of their families as forensic personnel in blue uniforms examined the bodies.
Nearby, rescuers and volunteers were digging through buildings that had turned into mountains of rubble in the hope of finding survivors, though the possibility was remote five days after the earthquakes.
American airmen were also helping restore traffic at Simon Bolivar International Airport near Caracas, which was heavily damaged.
A new magnitude 4.6 tremor on Monday renewed fear among the population.
The government has militarized La Guaira and imposed a permit requirement to enter the disaster zone.
Residents have expressed anger over what they described as slow and limited government aid in a country already facing a deep crisis that has driven millions to emigrate in recent years.
A total of 27 countries have mobilized nearly 40 search and rescue teams, including more than 2,000 troops and personnel and more than 160 dogs, according to Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations coordinator in Venezuela.
Rampolla said the United Nations will provide 10,000 body bags, while hoping the final death toll will be lower.
The critical 72-hour window to find survivors closed Saturday at 6:04 p.m.
Still, rescue workers continued to hope for survivors. A 21-year-old man identified as Aaron Levi was rescued Monday in the coastal town of Tanaguarena, according to a video shared by a photographer who witnessed the operation.
The U.N. says about 7 million people in Venezuela will be affected by the disaster, with the earthquakes causing a $6.7 billion hit to the economy, equal to about 6% of gross domestic product (GDP).
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado accused the government Monday of impeding her return to the country as it reels from the earthquakes.
Machado has been in exile since December, when she managed a dramatic escape from Venezuela to receive her Nobel prize in Oslo after spending more than a year in hiding.
In a video message posted on X from Panama, Machado said she wanted to return to accompany Venezuelans in "these heart-wrenching hours."
She accused Caracas of shutting down Venezuela's commercial airspace to block her return.
"They had to reverse it, but they have threatened those who want to facilitate my return," Machado said.
The international airport in Maiquetia, which serves Caracas, was closed because of earthquake damage. It has been partially reopened for humanitarian flights, while the airports in the central city of Valencia and the eastern city of Maracaibo are operating international flights.
The government has not commented on the matter, nor has Washington, which is coordinating operations on the ground.
The twin earthquakes occurred six months after then-President Nicolas Maduro was captured in a U.S. military operation. His vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, is now interim president and governs under pressure from Washington.
The opposition led by Machado claimed victory for its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in the 2024 presidential elections, after which Maduro declared his reelection despite claims of fraud.
Machado announced in May from Panama that she was determined to negotiate a democratic transition with the interim government in Venezuela. Rodriguez's administration has not responded to her demands.
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