It begins, as all tragedies do, with a violation of the ordinary. January 3rd saw the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, a seizure that tore the fabric of sovereignty and laid bare the siege that has long choked this nation. Before the earth shook, Venezuela was already bleeding under the weight of US sanctions, a blockade, and the constant threat of regime change. The local right-wing, propped up by the United States, had long engaged in the systematic violation of human rights, turning political differences into a crime. This was the grim backdrop of a people under perpetual assault.

But on that day, the assault came from a different direction. The earth itself rebelled. Two violent tremors, one of magnitude 7.2 and another of 7.5, struck seconds apart, their epicenter just off the coast. La Guaira, the nation’s gateway to the sea, became the epicenter of ruin. The United Nations reported over a hundred buildings collapsed, including the Eduard’s Hotel, reduced to debris with only its entrance standing. In Catia La Mar, next to the Simón Bolívar International Airport, multi-story apartment buildings crumbled into themselves. A social housing project built during Chávez’s presidency—a symbol of revolutionary promise—lay grotesquely shattered, its identical low-rise apartments now askew. Caracas mourned too, particularly the north side, where the Petunia residential building in Los Palos Grandes was reduced to a skeleton of concrete and rebar. 

By the time I reached Caracas, the initial count of 235 dead had grown to 1,450. More than 3,150 were wounded, nearly 69,000 were missing or trapped under the rubble, and 774 buildings had collapsed.

As if the earth’s betrayal were not enough, another assault continued unabated. The United States had seized $5.49 billion of Venezuela’s 2026  oil revenue, while offering $120 million in earthquake aid—a sum that would be laughable if it weren’t so cruel, given the estimated $6.7 billion in losses. Another $30 billion in Venezuelan assets remained frozen, untouchable, while people lay trapped under concrete. You do the math. A country in ruins, and the world’s superpower offers crumbs while taking the whole loaf.

On the ground, rescue operations were crippled by a brutal shortage of heavy equipment—bulldozers, excavators, cranes. The very machines that could have shifted concrete and rebar were scarce, a direct consequence of years of U.S. sanctions that had blocked Venezuela from procuring this equipment and spare parts . Rescue workers, military and civilian alike, did what they could with what they had. But the earth refused to be still. Aftershocks continued, collapsing what little remained standing and forcing workers to pull back again and again.

I learned of this tragedy not on the ground, but from the sky.

I was on a plane, engrossed in a musical, when I checked the flight map. We were an hour from landing at Simón Bolívar Airport. That hour became two, then three. A puzzle, a minor inconvenience, nothing to worry about. Little did I know that an hour before we were supposed to touch down, Venezuela had been struck by the strongest earthquake in over a century.

Illusion of paradise 

Our flight diverted to Panama. For two days, we were housed in an extravagant beachfront hotel with an “eternity pool.” A wonderland of free food, sun, and sea. An illusion of paradise. Yet the Venezuelans on that flight could barely leave the lobby. They didn’t rest in their rooms or swim. They were glued to their phones, faces etched with terror that had nothing to do with the luxury around them. All they wanted was home.

I watched them from across the lobby, their bodies present but their minds elsewhere—in La Guaira, in Caracas, in the rubble of their neighborhoods. I couldn’t claim to feel what they felt; my home was an ocean away. But their anguish was palpable, and I felt it too, as a witness to their pain. I checked the news alongside them, scrolling through images of collapsed buildings, reading the rising death toll, my own stomach tightening with each update. I was a stranger who had stumbled into their grief, and I carried it as best I could.

Long way home 

After two days, no one wanted another moment in that wonderland, even when everything was free. We were given the option to go back to Istanbul, and from there to our flight origin—for me, the Philippines. A few opted for this, but most of us were fiercely determined to reach Venezuela. The airline understood. Most passengers were Venezuelans, and their determination was not a choice but a necessity.

Against all odds, our airline found a way. Before takeoff, the pilot spoke over the intercom. He expressed his condolences and solidarity. He acknowledged the closed airports, the shattered roads, the national tragedy—and then said this flight was happening because they understood hope, care, love, and solidarity. We were flying to Valencia, and from there, we would find our own way to Caracas.

No one on that flight would claim they didn’t clap their fiercest. Another round of applause accompanied our glorious, emotional landing.

Upon reaching Caracas late that evening, I began to understand. News reports and images on mass media make it appear as though Venezuela has become a no-man’s-land. It isn’t. The life of the city, the resilience of its people, persevered. But what has become of La Guaira and parts of Caracas is a real tragedy that the whole nation mourns.

The ground beneath us is never as stable as we believe. For Venezuela, the tremors of U.S. imperialism and the tremors of the earth have become one and the same.

Caracas rises 

It is June 27, barely two and a half days since the tragedy. Caracas has mobilized. There are three distinct zones of work. Zone Zero is where human beings remain under the rubble. Access is restricted—accreditation required, the site militarized and sealed off. Only health workers, trained experts in excavation and rescue, search and rescue dogs, and military personnel are permitted here. Zone One is the hospitals, where the injured are treated. Zone Two is the classification and repacking of donations—where ordinary citizens can contribute, no enlistment needed.

We left home shortly after breakfast and walked to Parque Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda—Parque del Este to everyone—in the municipality of Sucre, off Avenida Francisco de Miranda. A vast urban park of 64 hectares, one of Caracas’s great lungs. On this morning, its pathways had become a sprawling logistics hub. We found two collection and sorting sites within the park, each buzzing with urgency. The work of organizing what had been given, of turning chaos into order, had begun.

We started with perhaps forty volunteers, a modest assembly. Donations arrived in labelled boxes: romper caballero, romper niños, romper damas, zapatos de niña. A tent for medicines, another for water, another for dry food. Everything was organized, deliberate. A woman sat at a folding table with a marker, her handwriting precise and unhurried, creating labels. Her work was the first act of ordering chaos.

But what struck me most was the quality control.

Gatekeepers of worth 

We sorted through stacks of bags. Most were already labelled, their contents matching with surprising accuracy. We were examining them a second time, verifying, correcting. As I placed a blanket into the growing mountain of sábanas (bed sheets), a young woman paused. She reached in, pulled it out, and examined it with the intensity of a jeweler. She held it to the light.

“Stains,” she said. “No. Not useful.”

I held up a pair of denim jeans—stylishly tattered, the kind one pays good money for. She shook her head.

“This won’t protect anyone from the cold.”

She turned to a red shirt being evaluated by another volunteer and called our group together, her voice soft but firm.

“See these tiny holes?” she said. “No. We cannot give this away.”

At that moment, our work shifted. We were not just classifying. We were the brigada de control de calidad—the quality control brigade. She was our foreperson, our conscience.

I watched her after that, keeping an eye on me and a few others she had caught lacking. She moved with graceful authority, someone who understood that charity without discernment was thoughtlessness. She refused to let good intentions compromise the dignity of the recipients.

It made me smile. I stared at her, tears warming my cheeks.

The measure of a people

She reminded me of the ukay-ukay thrift shops of my homeland, where one carefully examines vintage clothing meant to be worn with pride. The hunt for the perfect find, the reverence for objects that carried stories. But this wasn’t about acquisition. This was about giving with dignity or the insistence that even in disaster, even in the rubble, the people of Venezuela deserved the best we could offer.

She reminded me of my mother, who once reprimanded me as I was about to feed our dog. She noticed the dirt on the plate and gently but firmly said: Always make sure your dog eats on a plate where you would allow yourself to eat. 

In that park, surrounded by mixed relief goods and grief, this young woman applied the same principle. She would not let the victims receive anything she wouldn’t offer her own family. That is the measure of a people’s soul—not what they have, but what they insist on giving.

I was reminded of the dignity Venezuelans reserve for themselves and their people. It is a fierce, unyielding thing. The same dignity that kept them on their feet through sanctions, blockades, the constant threat of regime change. The same dignity that made them refuse to distribute substandard aid, that made them insist on quality and respect—the recognition that the victims of this tragedy were not beggars but human beings, deserving of warmth and care.

By the time we were about to leave, we were no longer forty. We were in our hundreds. People brought motorcycles to deliver packed goods to different collection points. They brought their cars, trunks laden with carefully selected black bags. More arrived, carrying colchones—mattresses—strapped to roofs or balanced on shoulders. Workers in matching uniforms came together, carrying packed drinks in a coordinated contribution drive from their workplace. Families of five or seven, little children in tow, came bearing bags and packages, the young ones clutching stuffed animals with the solemnity of pilgrims.

Everyone moved with decisiveness. There was no confusion, no hesitation. Each person knew their role in this grand machinery of compassion. The organization emerged not only  from  official directive but ostensibly from the sheer will of a people who refused to be paralyzed by grief. They had transformed sorrow into action, despair into purpose. In that park, surrounded by the chaos of donations and the hum of collective labor, I witnessed something I will carry forever: a nation, wounded but not broken, rising to meet its own tragedy with open hands and fierce hearts.

 Save as PDF