The death toll from the two earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24 has risen to 4,333, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez told reporters on Saturday, announcing that the distribution of housing to those affected will begin next week.
Meanwhile, 315 of the dead have not yet been identified, the official said.
The official tally of injured remained unchanged at 16,740, while 6,462 people have been rescued and about 17,000 have been left homeless.
Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez renewed calls on Wednesday for international sanctions to be lifted to assist recovery efforts following increasingly stringent sanctions imposed by the US, the European Union, and other countries over the last two decades.
“Venezuela has resources blocked around the world that could address this process of reconstruction,” she said on state television channel VTV.
Israel’s humanitarian mission will continue another two weeks
The Israeli aid delegation’s earthquake relief work in Venezuela will continue for an additional two weeks after interim president Delcy Rodriguez met with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to request the extension, the Foreign Ministry and the IDF announced on Wednesday.
The decision was approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
With a small delegation of only 30 people, Israeli presence in Venezuela has been focused on designing a national reconstruction plan, which Rodriguez hopes to begin implementing.
As part of the plan, the IDF began mapping and categorizing approximately 1,300 buildings on Monday, classifying them as either to be demolished or potentially salvageable despite damage.
Additionally, IDF Brig.-Gen. Elad Edri said that the IDF engineers have provided guidance to Venezuela on handling debris from damaged buildings.
‘Out of the box thinking’ as earthquake death toll rises
The multi-year plan is a major accomplishment of the Israeli delegation, and Venezuela approved it within days, rather than the weeks or months it would normally take to develop.
Edri said the severity of the disaster warranted rapid, out-of-the-box thinking.
Following the June 24 earthquake, the IDF delegation flew out of Israel on June 30 and landed in Venezuela on July 1 after multiple complex stopovers, Edri said.
He explained that, given the current chaos, other delegations who wanted to assist with the disaster have needed four to five days of travel and waiting to reach disaster-stricken sites.
Even the IDF could not fly directly into Caracas; they flew into Valencia instead and then traveled domestically to Caracas.
Ariella Roitman, Yonah Jeremy Bob, and Miriam Sela-Eitam contributed to this report.
