A pair of powerful earthquakes struck northern Venezuela on Wednesday evening, flattening buildings in multiple heavily populated areas, including the port city of La Guaira and the capital, Caracas. Venezuelan authorities and foreign search and rescue teams are scrambling to find more survivors, and we’re still waiting for a lot of information, two days later. Here are five things to know about the disaster and its aftermath.

The full death toll and scale of the damage may not be clear for some time.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 900 deaths have been confirmed by Venezuela’s government, along with thousands of injuries, but the full toll is undoubtedly greater. USGS PAGER system estimates suggest the death toll will rise well over a thousand and possibly to tens of thousands, but it may take days or weeks before anyone knows for sure. Wednesday was a national holiday, which likely means more people were home during the quakes than usual for a weekday evening (though thankfully, the quakes did not strike overnight when people were asleep). There have been widespread complaints about the slow response of Venezuelan authorities following the quake; communication and internet access remains limited; and at this point, it’s not clear how many people are still trapped in the rubble, living or dead.

Tens of thousands of people have been reported missing on various websites where friends and family members are searching for information about their loved ones, but communication disruptions are hampering those efforts. The president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, has said that 250 buildings were damaged or lost across the region, particularly in the port city of La Guaira, but that may be an undercount as well. Photos and footage of La Guaira show dozens of collapsed or otherwise severely damaged structures, including numerous large residential buildings.

#URGENTE 10:25am Vista aérea de los daños en la Guaira (Zona Cero), es muy grave la situacion, mas de 40 edificios colapsados y no se observan equipos de rescate. pic.twitter.com/afvOBT66TV— Andrews Abreu (@AndrewsAbreu) June 25, 2026

#URGENTE 10:25am Vista aérea de los daños en la Guaira (Zona Cero), es muy grave la situacion, mas de 40 edificios colapsados y no se observan equipos de rescate. pic.twitter.com/afvOBT66TV

The Associated Press has collected information about how to help those affected by the disaster.

This may have been a rare “doublet” seismic event.

According to the USGS, the first 7.2-magnitude quake, centered near the north-central town of Yumare, was followed, 39 seconds later, by a far more powerful 7.5-magnitude quake with an epicenter three to six miles from the first. Initial data indicates that they likely occurred on separate fault lines, earthquake science professor Mark Quigley explains at the Conversation:

Unlike a typical earthquake sequence, where a larger earthquake is followed by significantly smaller aftershocks, doublets are earthquakes of similar magnitude that are causally linked, but seismologically distinct. This means the seismic waves from each quake are separated by a gap in time, and/or originate from distinct sources.Although the Venezuelan earthquake epicentres were within mere kilometres of each other, seismic wave information from the USGS suggests they likely originated from different faults with different rupture styles. This is consistent with previously developed maps of active faults in this region. These show large strike-slip faults, where rocks slide past each other in an east-west direction, linked with arrays of smaller faults in various orientations.It’s likely the first earthquake triggered the second one. This could have happened because Earth’s crust displacement in the first earthquake fault increased stress on the second earthquake’s source fault. Additionally, the passage of seismic waves from the first earthquake could have rattled nearby faults already prone to a rupture, causing them to fail.

Unlike a typical earthquake sequence, where a larger earthquake is followed by significantly smaller aftershocks, doublets are earthquakes of similar magnitude that are causally linked, but seismologically distinct. This means the seismic waves from each quake are separated by a gap in time, and/or originate from distinct sources.

Although the Venezuelan earthquake epicentres were within mere kilometres of each other, seismic wave information from the USGS suggests they likely originated from different faults with different rupture styles. This is consistent with previously developed maps of active faults in this region. These show large strike-slip faults, where rocks slide past each other in an east-west direction, linked with arrays of smaller faults in various orientations.

It’s likely the first earthquake triggered the second one. This could have happened because Earth’s crust displacement in the first........

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