The situation in Venezuela following the earthquakes - Press Conference

Great.
John Luca, we see you.
Do you hear us? Yes.
La, Stephen.
Perfect.
G Luca, thank you for your patience.
As promised, we're joined by Gian Luca Rampoa Del Tinardo, resident humanitarian coordinator for Venezuela.
Jan Luca, please, you have the floor and then we'll take some questions.
Stephen, if you agree, I'll be rather short so that we can open up for specifics.
Perfect.
Yes, please.
Go ahead.
I'm not going to go back into the events of last Wednesday because those have been widely reported.
I'll focus on where we are at this point.
I mean, since Wednesday last week when we got hit by the 27.27 0.5 back to back earthquakes, we have had 500 aftershocks.
And the latest was this morning Farhan.
The latest was early this morning at 5.2 aftershocks.
So you can understand that we keep on operating in a high risk environment.
Seven states have been affected.
The two that have been affected the most are the state of Laguya and the Capital District of Carcas.
Just to give you a bit of numbers.
We are working with and using the official numbers provided by government.
As of the latest update yesterday night, 140 101,450 people have lost their life, 3,000 more than 3,000 have been injured and over 12,000 displaced.
Now, these numbers will unavoidably and sadly keep on growing as the search and rescue operation continues and as we are able to detail further the assessment of the impact of the waste.
In terms of the ongoing response, the government is leading a large scale operation that is focused primarily at this stage on still search and rescue.
We are beyond the 72 hours critical window.
But this is one of the miracles of this country.
Rescuers are still being able to pull out alive people alone yesterday alone, seven persons were pulled out of the rubble.
Alive.
Obviously, we are focusing the government on emergency medical care.
And working rapidly on setting up emergency shelter.
There is a tropical wave that is expected in the next hours to reach and this will bring heavy rains.
If you can imagine what this means for the displaced people.
27 countries have mobilized over 40 teams of urban search and rescue rescuers.
This means 2000/2000 rescuers and personnel on the ground with over 160 dogs operating within the framework of the InSAR, which is the platform that the UN coordinates to mobilize support from all over the world.
Together with the rescue search and rescue operation, we are focusing we gather together with government on providing emergency healthcare, shelter, food assistance, water and sanitation, logistics support in ensuring not only storage but distribution of all of the supplies that are coming into the country.
And protection.
From a personal perspective, and I'll leave it there, and then we can move into questions.
I mean, I have had the chance already to be twice two full days now on the most affected areas and the show of solidarity as often happens in these cases.
But the heroism of the people and the solidarity is outstanding.
And this somehow mitigates a little bit, obviously, the pain and the needs of the people affected on the ground as the community itself has mobilized.
The international solidarity also is heartwarming at a time in which we just heard De updates of all possible conflicts around the world.
Well, the world has come together very rapidly to provide assistance to the country.
So at least this is a half story at this point.
I think I'll leave it at this so that we can go straight into specific questions.
Okay.
Thanks very much, Jean Luc.
I'll now turn the floor over to the press for questions.
First question goes to Amelie Butlier Thank you.
On behalf of the UN Correspondent Association, thank you very much for doing this briefing.
I'm Amelia Toolier from A HSP News agency.
I have two questions.
You said, sadly, the toll is likely to rise.
Do you have any idea how many people are missing or under the rubbles? Secondly, usually with this catastrophe, the UN is preparing some flash appeal for emergency funding.
Do you have any estimates of how much the UN system is going to need and the other organization going to need to face the first emergencies.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Farah.
Do you want me to take a few questions or do you want me to go one by one? Let's do it one by one.
Okay.
So thanks for the questions on the missing.
As I said, we are working hand in hand with the government, and I won't start speculating on numbers that the government hasn't announced officially.
I have given you actually I don't think I have given you a numbers.
2,500 at least 2,500 structured structures are affected, most of which fully collapsed.
So we are definitely looking at a number that is higher than the one already reported.
I can give you a proxy indicator.
We are procuring, and this is something that has been agreed with the authorities here, 10,000 body bags.
Okay? So that is somehow applying assumption.
It's very sad, and we truly hope that actually the number is going to be smaller than that.
And that's why we are focusing now on the rescue operation.
And I will give you a number of missing because we don't have that number.
And I'll just give you the number of the BCs that have already been reported, which is 1,950.
On the appeal, the fledge appeal, we will have an addendum to our existing humanitarian plan, and we're working on it.
Now, I have to acknowledge and thank the mobilization that has been globally to provide financial assistance, the United States of America, the European Union through Echo, other countries bilaterally, and the UN through the Serve have already pre allocated resources, important volume of resources that we are working on already allocate and start to use for the response.
Okay.
All right.
Next question? Yes.
Fine.
My name is.
Oh, sorry.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
You can give us more details about the search and rescues at 42,000 people.
How many people have been rescued, and so on and so forth.
Thank you.
I don't have the aggregate number also because it's a combination of the people that are being rescued by the international teams which we are coordinating together with the national rescue personnel and the private initiatives.
So I can give you the latest, which was yesterday alone, just four days after the event and one day after the critical 72 hours, the international rescues were able to pull out 705 people.
Okay.
Yes, please.
Okay.
Okay.
Excuse me.
Thank you so much for this opportunity.
My name is Mikski from Japanese newspaper, Amy Siman.
I just wanted to ask you about regarding the US rescue effort, that it was USAID that has been leading disaster relief efforts and then, as you know, has been already dismantled.
And then while collaborating with US team that has already been in Venezuela, did you notice any differences in their rapid response capabilities? And if you also note there is any assistance that USAID has been providing, it's no longer offered.
Thank you.
We are working very closely with the US team that has immediately deployed and our presence on the ground.
That is, in terms of coordination of logistics and actually that we have received the availability of their own asset and capacities that's on the operation on the ground.
In terms of financing, actually, the US was the first government to announce the availability of funding to respond to the emergency.
I'll leave at that.
Thanks.
Any further questions? Do we have any questions online? Okay.
If not, I'd like once more to thank our guest, John Luca Rampola del Tenardo, the resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator for Venezuela.
Thanks very much, and best of luck in I see F here on screen with the hand up.
I don't know if they wanted to.
Oh, wait.
Yes.
Yes.
They just joined.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
F, please.
Hold on.
I can hear you.
Hold on, please.
We can't quite hear you.
Can you get the audio up? What? Hold on.
Try again.
I don't know whether you're muted.
Sorry, we still can't hear you.
Write out your question and then I can read it over for John Duca.
Okay.
Yes, Esteban from FA has the following question.
We have seen that many countries are offering aid and resources, but how can the UN ensure that it is distributed properly and reaches its intended recipients? Only offering, they have already provided it.
I repeat, there are 27 countries that mobilized and have landed in country with rescue teams and medical emergency teams.
There are supplies that are coming in and there are more that are going to come and there is financing.
We have established mechanisms to coordinate all of this.
We have an aid architecture that has been operating since 2019 in country.
This is just to remind ourselves that we already have an ongoing response within Venezuela.
Within this architecture and through these mechanisms, we will work with government to ensure the best available and maximum impact of the resources that the world is and will keep on, hopefully providing to respond to this emergency.
Okay.
Thanks.
Are there any further questions? Okay.
I see none.
So once again, thank you very much, Jan Luca, and best of luck in what, unfortunately, I think will be some fairly difficult days ahead.
But thanks very much.
Thanks, Dan.
Thanks.
Good afternoon.