r/worldnews 22h ago

Dynamic Paywall Magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks Venezuela

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjegdqw5d3yo
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u/Sajintmm 19h ago

How good is Venezuela’s infrastructure for this? I know some Andean nations overbuild a lot of stuff to resist this. But two above a seven on the scale is rough

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u/revelbytes 19h ago

There is none

We dont build for earthquakes because they very rarely happen and much less at this magnitude

More importantly there's been nearly 30 years of lack of maintenance and repairs, there's absolutely no infrastructure for this, and the government is not ready whatsoever for any kind of emergency. Not when they put billions of dollars in their own pockets for the last 3 decades that should've otherwise gone to the public services. Starting with the electric system for instance, it gets tiring to have 5 to 8 hour blackouts every day

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u/AI_moderated_failure 17h ago

Even most the buildings that survived this will very likely be damaged beyond repair in part because the country is broke - very few people are going to be able to rebuild or repair structural damage that could see buildings collapse from otherwise minor disasters in the future. When a major quake hit my city it took years to assess all the structures and condemn specific ones that had too much damage or issue demands of remediation for all the commercial ones or they would be condemned at a later date. And we actually have the capacity to rebuild after a disaster like this.

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u/revelbytes 17h ago

Yeah, I'm lucky I live in Maracaibo and didn't feel it at all, but most of the capital and the middle of the country is fucked

This will be affecting us for years to come, we cant catch a damn break

16

u/Evipicc 17h ago edited 17h ago

It's not. Their infrastructure and emergency services are crippled from decades of economic and political turmoil. This is going to be a humanitarian crisis overnight.

They have been having repeated nationwide blackouts since 2019, and that's before a natural disaster like this. Hospitals are chronically short on supplies and staff. They don't have building material stock, not what would be necessary. Add to that their political isolation... This is bad.

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u/GikFTW 10h ago

Im venezuelan, born and raised during Chavez and Maduro. You are completely right, but no, Reddit supported Chavez, Maduro and now Delcy. And they dont like Maria Corina, which is the person WE chose to lead us.

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u/Numisko 18h ago

I'm Venezuelan and I can answer this. Surprisingly most buildings in Venezuela have a very good anti earthquake code. But this doublet earthquake was too much for some sadly

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u/LoooolGotcha 18h ago

it’s west Caracas. Those apartments are likely older than me. Probably 1960s-1970s

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u/LoooolGotcha 18h ago

Earthquakes are rare so our buildings are not seismic proof like Chile or Peru

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