Venezuela quake survivors face disease risk as hospitals buckle under pressure

Laguaira,UPDATED: Jun 30, 2026 20:38 IST

Aid groups and United Nations agencies warned on Tuesday that Venezuela's fragile healthcare system is being stretched to its limit nearly a week after two powerful earthquakes, as damaged and understaffed hospitals struggle to cope with the injured and worsening conditions in the disaster zone. The warning came as the official death toll rose above 1,700 and rescue teams continued searching for survivors across the country.

Even as bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding among survivors. UN agencies said thousands of displaced people have spent days sleeping in the open or in crowded and unhygienic shelters, raising concerns over disease outbreaks and worsening food shortages.

Venezuelan officials have said more than 15,800 people have been affected by the earthquakes, a figure that reflects the official number of displaced people, UN refugee agency spokesperson Carlotta Wolf said on Tuesday. Many of those left homeless are sleeping in cars, parks and other places because adequate emergency shelter is not available. Wolf said the number of displaced people would continue to rise, and added that many in the worst-hit state of La Guaira were facing widespread food shortages.

At a media briefing in Geneva, World Health Organisation spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said displaced Venezuelans had become increasingly vulnerable to preventable diseases such as measles because of low vaccination rates, as well as water-borne and mosquito-borne illnesses including dengue, yellow fever and malaria, which are flaring in the aftermath of the disaster. The Venezuelan healthcare system, already strained by decades of underinvestment and years of economic crisis, is "under extreme pressure now, with facilities operating beyond the capacity of the surge of the trauma cases," Lindmeier said.

According to the government, 38 hospitals across the country were damaged or otherwise affected by last week's earthquakes. The WHO has so far assessed 21 of those facilities. Of them, three are no longer functioning, six have been damaged, and the rest are struggling under a sharp rise in trauma cases. The WHO also said many specialist doctors are missing in the ruins, including officials responsible for maternity care in La Guaira.

"Findings reveal chaotic service delivery and patient flow, marked by overcrowding, growing surgical backlogs ... and a breakdown in biosafety measures," Lindmeier said, adding that the disruption had led to "the collapse of forensic and morgue services and inadequate casualty registration." The government said on Monday that 1,719 people had been killed and 5,000 injured. However, experts said the toll was likely to be significantly higher as many people remained missing and hopes of finding more survivors faded with each passing day. Authorities have not released an official figure for the missing, and damage to phone networks and other infrastructure has made it harder to assess how many people are still trapped. A non-governmental digital database listed more than 50,000 people as missing, though it was unclear how many had since been found.

With rescue operations still under way, the situation in Venezuela is worsening for both the injured and the displaced, as overstretched hospitals, disease risks, food shortages and uncertainty over the number of missing people add to the impact of the earthquakes.

With PTI Inputs

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