In a plot twist that screams satire before it even begins, Venezuela’s already shaky political landscape now literally wobbles. A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck the coastal state of Sucre, reducing buildings to rubble and patience to dust.
Within hours, the British rescue teams, those tireless heroes of disaster diplomacy, were already boots on ground, digging through debris with the kind of efficiency that suggests they had the postcode saved. The local population, however, is not exactly rolling out the welcome mat. Anger is boiling over faster than a kettle in a Westminster committee room.
‘Why is the UK here but not our own government?’ a woman screams at a camera, her face the colour of the dust that cakes everything. It’s a question with all the subtlety of a bulldozer.
Meanwhile, President Maduro’s regime, still clinging to power like a cat on a wet roof, has issued a statement thanking the international community while simultaneously accusing the CIA of planting the tremors. You cannot make this up. You cannot.
The rescue efforts are a beacon of bloody-minded British pluck, but the underlying rage is a volcano waiting to erupt. And not the metaphorical kind. This is a story of seismic shifts on every level, and I for one will be watching from the bar, gin in hand, because someone has to document the farce before the tragedy gets its own spin-off.
