Earthquake in Venezuela shows economic fault-lines

The 7.2 on the Richter scale quake followed by a 7.5 one near capital Caracas in Venezuela was a deadly disaster. Even the best equipped countries would have been battered. But in rich countries like in the United States and in Japan, the buildings would have been damaged, but the loss of lives would have been minimal. We could see this in quakes that hit California and Tokyo. But in countries like Venezuela, despite its rich oil reserves, the economic and political turmoil shows its impact during natural disasters. This was reflected in the stark observation of Suhayl Sarquiz. She is 60, and she had lost her job and she had been living in a dilapidated multi-storied building. And it had crumbled like hundreds of others in La Guaira, north of Caracas. Sarquiz, 60, said, “My building is uninhabitable and now I have nothing. It’s just me and my son. I have no family in the country.”

The toll stands at 500 and more, and it is expected to be much more as hundreds of people are still trapped under the rubble of buildings even as rescue workers and ordinary people are scouring through the ruins to pull out people. The number of injured is around 3000, and it will rise by the time the rescue operations, which might takes weeks, are done. It is feared according to a United Nations estimate that the death toll could be 10,000, while many others fear that it could go up to 50,000. Venezuela is a politically polarized country, and suffering for years under the United States’ sanctions because of its socialist government. The economy was in near ruins before the disaster of the powerful quakes hit the most populous urban habitation of the country.

Delcy Rodriguez, who has taken over as president of the country in January after US President Donald Trump engineered a kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, throwing Venezuela into political chaos. He could not dislodge the socialist regime as he would have liked to. So, he was content to manage the transition to Maduro’s deputy to take over as the head of the country. Venezuela was already reeling under American sanctions. It is not a country in a position to cope with the destruction wrought by these two massive quakes. The US is planning to release a $150 million package which would be too little compared to the magnitude of the disaster.

The last time a big quake Venezuela was in 1967, nearly 60 years ago. And nearly 250 people died then. Over the last six decades, population has grown many times over, and cities have become crowded in terms of population density and the physical congestion in terms of unplanned buildings has increased. That is why, the death toll is going to be high, and the economic damage caused by the collapse of hundreds of buildings. The initial assessment shows that a hundred buildings were reduced to rubble. The oil infrastructure has remained unaffected and the oil company owners say that there is no damage to their assets. It should be the case that the owners of the oil companies, many of them from the United States after the Maduro abduction, should be lending their economic might to the affected people.

Like many Latin American countries, Venezuela is a resource-rich poor country. The internal political conflicts are the cause in many ways of the cause of the country’s brittle economy. It is a case of the few rich and the many poor. And the socialist governments of the populist Hugo Chavez, his successor Maduro have not helped in correcting the steep inequality. And the vested interests in the country are keen to preserve their own wellbeing. This put hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to the mercy of the harsh reality of poverty and natural disasters.