Venezuela quake death toll rises to 3,342, 16,740 injured

The confirmed death toll from Venezuela's devastating twin earthquakes has risen to 3,342, with 16,740 people injured, officials reported on Sunday, July 5. The figures mark one of the deadliest natural disasters in the country's modern history nearly two weeks after the initial 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes struck north-central Venezuela on June 24.

Authorities stated that 6,462 people have been rescued alive, but the focus of operations is increasingly shifting from search and rescue to recovery and rebuilding. The number of people left homeless has climbed to 17,345, and officials have established between 79 and 80 temporary camps to shelter the displaced. Nearly 86,800 families have received some form of government assistance, with more than 9,500 metric tons of food and 669,000 liters of water distributed in the disaster zone.

The scale of the missing remains a painful and unresolved aspect of the crisis. While the government has not released an updated count, humanitarian organizations have previously estimated that tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for, a figure officials caution may be inflated by widespread displacement and communication breakdowns....