The silence is the worst part. It hangs in the air, thick as dust, broken only by the scrape of a boot on rubble or the distant wail of a siren. In the aftermath of the earthquake that struck the Venezuelan coastal town of Puerto Cabello, rescue workers are performing a grim ritual. They stop. They listen. They wait for a cry, a tap, a sign of life beneath the collapsed concrete.
For many of these men and women, the training that sharpened their instincts came from a surprising source: a British-funded programme designed to export expertise to disaster zones. The UK International Search and Rescue (UKISAR) team, based in Hampshire, has spent years running courses for international responders. This week, those lessons are being tested in real time.
“You learn to read the rubble,” said Maria Gonzalez, a veteran rescuer with the Venezuelan Civil Protection service, her voice hoarse from shouting instructions. “The sound of a void, the way the dust settles. The British taught us to use acoustic devices, to map the grid. But the hardest part is the listening. You want so badly to hear something.”
The quake, which struck just before dawn on Tuesday, registered 7.1 on the Richter scale. It has levelled swathes of old colonial housing and newer, shoddily built apartment blocks. Official figures put the death toll at 127, but that number is expected to rise. Among the missing are entire families, including children from a local primary school that collapsed during morning assembly.
Rescuers work in shifts of 45 minutes, the heat and exhaustion too great for longer stretches. They crawl through gaps no wider than their shoulders, past twisted rebar and shattered furniture. A British-trained dog handler, Juan Martinez, guided his spaniel Bella over a section of pancaked floors. Bella stopped, whined, and began to scratch. The team fell silent. Martinez pressed his ear to the concrete. Nothing. He tried again with an amplified stethoscope. Still nothing. “False alarm,” he said quietly. “Or maybe not. We have to be sure.”
The UKISAR programme, funded by the Foreign Office and delivered through the Department for International Development, has been quietly operating for over a decade. It trains local teams in urban search and rescue, medical triage, and logistics. The idea is self-sufficiency: rather than flying in British crews every time disaster strikes, you build local capacity. In a country like Venezuela, where hyperinflation has gutted the public purse and left hospitals without basic supplies, that capacity is often all that stands between survival and tragedy.
“We are not here to pat ourselves on the back,” said David Turnbull, a UKISAR trainer who spent the last month in Caracas running drills. “But when I see these guys using the rope systems we taught them, or the search patterns, I know it makes a difference. It buys time. And time buys lives.”
Time is the enemy. The first 72 hours are critical. After that, survival rates plummet. As the sun set over Puerto Cabello, rescuers illuminated the site with floodlights. The British equipment, including cutting tools and listening devices, glowed under the harsh light. A generator hummed. Then, a moment of hope: a faint sound from deep within the debris. A woman’s voice, weak but coherent. Rescuers scrambled, digging by hand to avoid further collapse. Half an hour later, they pulled out a young mother, her baby wrapped in a blanket, both alive.
“It’s what we train for,” said Gonzalez, wiping dust from her face. “But you never get used to it. The British know that too. They taught us to stay calm, to work methodically. But they also taught us to feel. Because if you stop feeling, you stop caring. And caring is what makes you keep listening.”
As night descended, the work continued. The silence would be broken again. For now, the rescuers listened, their British-taught skills their only guide in the dark.
