In a moment of cosmic irony that would make even the most cynical satirist blush, Mother Nature has decided to give Nicolas Maduro a performance review he cannot rig. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake, apparently unimpressed with the state's crumbling infrastructure and the populace's diet of stray cats and socialist slogans, has hammered Caracas and the surrounding region into a fine dust that probably smells of failure and fried plantains.
The quake, which struck at a depth shallow enough to be considered 'personal,' has turned already decrepit buildings into monuments of entropy. Hospitals, already lacking paracetamol and running on the prayers of the elderly, now also lack walls. The official death toll, much like the country's inflation figures, is a work of fiction that will be adjusted upwards once no one is looking.
Enter the British, stage right, clutching teacups and aid parcels with the quiet desperation of a man who has just realised his gin supply is running low. RAF transport planes, emblazoned with the union jack, have landed in Caracas bearing the sort of supplies that Maduro's inner circle will undoubtedly sell on the black market within the hour. Still, one must admire the theatre: a nation that once sent gunboats to settle scores now sends tinned beans and water purification tablets to a country that nationalised its own water supply and promptly forgot how to make it run.
Down in the rubble, the Venezuelan people are doing what they do best: adapting, surviving, and occasionally weeping into a tin of expired sardines. The government, meanwhile, is using the disaster as an opportunity to blame everyone from the CIA to the ghost of Hugo Chavez's haircut. Maduro, in a televised address from a bunker that probably smells of cheap cologne and panic, declared that 'imperialist tremors' were responsible. Because nothing says 'imperialist plot' like tectonic plates moving.
As for the UK aid mission, it is a rare moment of genuine human decency from a government currently engaged in a Brexistential crisis that makes Venezuela look stable. Boris Johnson, possibly the only man capable of making Maduro look statesmanlike, tweeted his solidarity. The wording suggested he thought Venezuela was in Eastern Europe, but we shall give him points for effort.
In the end, earthquakes are the great equaliser. They do not distinguish between a presidential palace and a slum. They level the playing field, much like socialism, only faster and with more screaming. As the dust settles on Caracas, one must ask: is this the final blow for a regime held together with promises and duct tape? Or will Maduro, like a cockroach after a nuclear blast, emerge from the rubble to steal the last bag of cement? Only time, and the next supply of questionable gin, will tell.
