The earth shook in Caracas, and so too did the flimsy edifice of the Maduro regime. With the death toll climbing past the grim milestones of official silence, the Venezuelan government stands accused of wilful negligence. Not so much an earthquake as a tremor of truth.
Meanwhile, British relief teams are on standby, ready to deploy with their hi-tech kit and humanitarian jargon. How generous. But let us not kid ourselves.
This is not about rescue. This is about a dying empire in Latin America and the theatre of Western concern. The collapse of buildings is merely a metaphor for the collapse of state capacity.
We have seen this before—Pompeii, Lisbon, San Francisco. The difference is that in 2024, the world watches and does precisely nothing of substance. The real quake is the one that will reshape Europe’s moral landscape when we realise we cannot save everyone, and worse, we rarely try.
