He Consul of Uruguay in VenezuelaFernando Sotelo, stated that, for the moment, They do not have information on Uruguayans injured or deceased after the earthquakes that occurred in the Caribbean country on Wednesday.
The earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that left more than 900 dead and about 3,300 injured. The earthquake caused hundreds of buildings to collapse and telecommunications problems. One of the states that suffered the most from the tragedy was the coastal state of La Guaira and in its capital there is a record that they live, at least 14 Uruguayans.
“It is too early to say that there are missing Uruguayans. “We have to wait for the hours to pass,” the consul said this Friday in a communication via Zoom that he had with Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin and with journalists at the ministry.
“We cannot affirm that there are missing Uruguayans. At this moment We are not sure that the attempt to communicate with them has been successful because they do not have a line and they have no way to communicate,” added Sotelo. “Those Uruguayans that we have not been able to contact may be incommunicado for technological reasons or because there is no possibility of reaching them physically,” according to the diplomat.
But from the consulate they were able to communicate with other Uruguayans in the area. “Of those citizens 70% have contacted us to tell us that they are fine“, he said and assured that “80% of that area is without communication”so different routes have been used.
Official figures indicate that there are “3,500 or 4,000” Uruguayans in Venezuelabut they understand that there could be more because “many of them after several years in Venezuela They do not register at the embassy“and there is also”a new batch of Uruguayanschildren and grandchildren of Uruguayans who have obtained documentation in recent times and are incorporated into this list.
In these moments The Caribbean country is prioritizing search and rescue tasks. Regarding sending aid to this country, Foreign Minister Lubetkin stated that “it’s not about sending help for the sake of sending help”. “Today what is needed They are experts in the area of earthquake emergency and from that point of view we don’t have that profile“said the minister.
The consul assured that “a good part of the country is not accessing the media” and stated that They receive queries from Uruguayans who cannot contact their loved ones in that country. The diplomat said that there are 400 buildings that collapsed and that they are still there is fear of future aftershocks.
Furthermore “there is 13 hospitals that were seriously affected who obviously continue to work in the areas they can work on.
The diplomat gave this information from his cell phone via zoom at his home in Venezuela because The building where their offices operate is also damaged. “The consulate and the embassy are in a neighborhood called Los Big Sticks (east of Caracas) which is one of the most damaged”.
The building “it’s okay, it has internal damage”in the place “the furniture and computer equipment fell, but the building is fine.”It does not present a compromise from the point of view of habitability. Nor has any type of warning been received about the power to start working on it,” said the leader.
