An Israeli rescue delegation from Magen, Ready for Rescue, and SmartAID began the fifth day of its mission aiding civilians in disaster zones across Venezuela on Thursday after devastating earthquakes rocked the country this week.
The team is working with local forces and is being directed to sites where authorities have received information that people may have been inside buildings that collapsed following the earthquakes that struck the country.
Search and recovery work is being carried out manually under difficult field conditions, following consecutive days of intensive activity. The delegation said it has recovered numerous bodies from the rubble and will continue operating wherever local authorities identify a need for assistance.
“We go to every site where information is received about people who were inside buildings that collapsed,” said Eran Magen, head of the rescue delegation.
“This is manual, prolonged, and highly complex work, carried out under difficult field conditions and over days of continuous activity. We continue to operate wherever we can help, with full commitment to the mission,” he said.
Large-scale damage, ongoing rescue efforts by Israeli delegation
The earthquakes have killed about 2,300 people, with thousands more injured and left homeless, according to Venezuelan lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, and some 41,136 are still reported as missing.
"There is no doubt we are facing a figure higher than what has already been reported. I can offer an estimate: we are procuring - and this has been agreed with local authorities - 10,000 body bags," Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations' resident coordinator in Venezuela, said on Monday from his Caracas office.
Some 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed - which hit seconds apart with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 - according to an analysis by Oregon State University researchers using satellite images.
The delegation said its activity would continue according to operational information provided by local authorities.
Reuters contributed to this report.