The number of deaths from the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that occurred in the northern part of Venezuela a week ago rose to 2,295, while the number of injured rose to 11,267, the president of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, reported this Wednesday.

"As of today, there are 2,295 dead people, 11,267 injured people. We are currently counting 12,841 people affected," said Rodríguez in a report broadcast by the state channel Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).

Likewise, he noted that 6,461 people have been rescued by more than 4,000 rescuers. “Hope remains intact,” he said.

Rodríguez explained that since the double earthquake, 782 aftershocks have been recorded, although he clarified that during the last two days the frequency and intensity have decreased.

“The threat appears to be decreasing, but it has not disappeared,” he said.

The Government has also set up 25 “transitional” camps for the affected people, 13 of them in La Guaira, the most affected area; eight in Caracas, two in Miranda, one in Carabobo and one in Yaracuy.

Rodríguez called on the affected people to register in an online government system called Patria, through which social aid is delivered, to “quickly” resolve the issue of “habitability” and take them to “hotels in the capital city so that they have a place to spend the night.”

The double earthquake a week ago is the deadliest that Venezuela has experienced in the last century. Fifty-nine years earlier, in July 1967, an earthquake occurred near Caracas in which 245 people died, thousands were injured, and the material damage was extensive.

The earthquakes seven days ago affected Caracas and six other states in the north of the country. The most affected region has been La Guaira, a coastal area that already experienced a tragedy due to a landslide in 1999 that left thousands of dead.

A first rapid experimental assessment carried out by the US space agency NASA with satellite images indicates that the double earthquake in Venezuela could have left some 58,870 buildings damaged or destroyed throughout the affected region. EFE