The Daily Journal. — Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, updated the death toll from the June 24 earthquakes to 2,595 on Thursday and defended the procedures authorities have followed to manage and identify the victims. She said officials have complied with Venezuelan law and international standards throughout the process.
During a press conference with international media, Rodríguez said authorities established a specialized morgue in La Guaira to centralize the identification process and return the bodies to their families.
“In accordance with Venezuelan law, we activated a morgue at a specialized facility in La Guaira to ensure proper handling,” she said.
Rodríguez explained that the National Service of Forensic Medicine and Sciences, the Ministry of Interior and Justice, the Attorney General’s Office, and the Civil Registry are working together to guarantee the individual identification of every victim.
She said she instructed authorities to avoid mass burials and ordered them to identify every body before burial.
“The figure we are reporting is a rigorous one,” Rodríguez said.
As an example of the verification process, she explained that authorities found several people whom initial reports had listed as deceased but who later turned out to be alive.
“We cross-check information. Five people who had been registered as deceased bought fuel after the event, and there is no way to mistake their identity because the system requires a fingerprint. Those five people were alive,” she said.
Rodríguez said the government avoids releasing figures until officials fully verify every case.
“We do not want to publish numbers that have not been rigorously confirmed. Here is the body; this is the figure,” she said.
According to Rodríguez, authorities first identify victims through fingerprint records and photographic documentation. When those methods do not provide a definitive identification, forensic odontologists conduct dental examinations.
“Every body has its own file that allows identification,” she said, adding that families can later choose cremation or burial for their relatives.
The acting president said this process has allowed authorities to comply with both international protocols and Venezuelan law governing the handling of human remains.
Government attributes lower death toll to earthquake location
Rodríguez also said the location of the earthquake epicenter helped reduce the human toll compared with the projections that some international organizations initially estimated.
“Fortunately, the earthquake occurred closer to the coastal fault than to the mountains,” she said.
She explained that several international projections had anticipated a much higher death toll because they assumed landslides and collapses had also devastated densely populated hillside communities.
“They believed homes in the popular hillside neighborhoods had also collapsed (…) Fortunately, those communities did not suffer the same impact as the residential neighborhoods,” she said.
Rodríguez’s official update also keeps the number of injured at 12,400 and the number of displaced people above 12,000, while search and recovery operations continue in the areas hardest hit by the earthquakes.
