Rescuers in La Guaira pulled a father and his son alive from the rubble of a collapsed building on Sunday, nearly four days after powerful twin earthquakes devastated parts of Venezuela. The dramatic rescue offered a rare moment of hope as emergency teams continued searching for survivors despite rapidly diminishing chances of finding people alive beneath the debris. The pair were rescued after nearly 12 hours of delicate operations involving specialized search cameras and careful removal of unstable rubble before they were safely carried to waiting ambulances for medical treatment.

Members of the French Civil Security team said both survivors were in extremely weak condition after spending four days trapped under collapsed concrete. Medical personnel immediately began rehydrating them and administering emergency treatment during the slow extraction process. International rescue teams, including personnel from the Mexican Army and the Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team from Virginia in the United States, have joined Venezuelan authorities in the large-scale search operation. A day earlier, the American team successfully rescued a mother and her nine-month-old baby from another collapsed structure.

According to acting president and National Assembly head Jorge Rodriguez, the death toll from Wednesday's twin earthquakes has climbed to 1,450, while more than 3,150 people have been injured. Authorities said at least 12,721 residents have been displaced and 774 buildings have either collapsed or suffered severe structural damage. Interim President Delcy Rodriguez reaffirmed that rescue and recovery operations would continue, saying authorities would not suspend search efforts as long as there remained hope of finding additional survivors beneath the rubble.

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Emergency responders acknowledge that the passage of time has made rescue efforts increasingly difficult. Saturday evening marked 72 hours since the earthquakes struck, a period widely regarded by disaster response experts as the critical survival window for people trapped beneath collapsed buildings. Sebastian Eugster, who leads the Swiss rescue team, said the likelihood of finding survivors decreases significantly after the first three days, although exceptional rescues remain possible under favourable conditions.

The twin earthquakes, measured at magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, caused widespread destruction across affected regions of Venezuela. The United States Geological Survey estimated that the disaster could ultimately result in more than 10,000 fatalities, potentially making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in Latin America in the past century. Rescue officials said at least 33 people have been pulled alive from the rubble so far, including several children, while thousands of families continue searching for missing relatives.

Humanitarian assistance has continued to arrive from several countries as rescue teams work around the clock. An opposition-backed missing persons registry indicated that nearly 50,000 people were still unaccounted for on Sunday, a slight improvement from the previous day's figures. Meanwhile, a senior United States official said Washington is expected to announce an additional aid package worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming days, adding to the $150 million already pledged to support rescue operations, humanitarian relief, and recovery efforts in earthquake-hit Venezuela.

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