The clock is ticking for rescue teams in Venezuela, where a devastating landslide has buried entire communities under mud and debris. Among those leading the desperate effort are British search-and-rescue veterans, deployed to a region where poverty has left infrastructure crumbling and emergency services overwhelmed.
The disaster struck the coastal state of La Guaira, a place where countless families already live hand to mouth, their homes clinging to hillsides vulnerable to floods. Today, those hillsides collapsed, swallowing neighbourhoods whole. Official figures are uncertain, but locals fear hundreds remain missing.
‘We are digging with our hands, with shovels. The machines cannot reach,’ said Maria Torres, a mother of three who lost her home and her job as a domestic worker. ‘If the British team had not come, we would have no hope at all.’
Members of UK International Search and Rescue arrived within hours, veterans of earthquake zones in Turkey and Nepal. They brought specialist equipment, but also something else: experience in organising volunteers and coordinating with patchy local authorities. ‘The conditions are brutal,’ said team leader David Hawkins, a former firefighter from Manchester. ‘Every minute counts. People are trapped under collapsed concrete, mudslides are still a risk. We are racing against the weather, against exhaustion.’
For Venezuela, this crisis is layered onto a decade of economic collapse. Hyperinflation has made basic goods unaffordable. Hospitals lack medicine. Wages are a pittance. Now, whole communities are erased. The UK team’s work is clear: find the living, recover the dead. But their presence highlights a deeper failure of governance. The Venezuelan state, crippled by sanctions and mismanagement, cannot protect its own people.
‘When disaster strikes, it shows who the government works for,’ said Dr Helena Rivas, an economist at the Central University of Venezuela. ‘Here, it is the poorest who die. The wealthy in Caracas may not even hear the screams.’
The British veterans are undeterred. Trained to operate in chaos, they are using listening devices and dogs to detect signs of life. On Tuesday, they pulled a five-year-old girl alive from the rubble, her arm broken, her face streaked with mud. Her mother had died shielding her. ‘That moment makes every sleepless night worth it,’ said Hawkins, his voice cracking.
The UK Foreign Office has pledged £2 million in aid, but rescue workers say they need heavy machinery, clean water, and more medical supplies. The clock ticks on. As night falls, temperatures drop, and the survivors huddle in makeshift shelters. For the British team, there is no rest. ‘We will keep going until we cannot stand,’ said Hawkins. ‘These people have nothing left. We have to be their lifeline.’
