By Julia Symmes Cobb and Sarah Morland
CALI, Colombia, Aug 15 (Reuters) - At a flattened apartment block known as Los Cocos in northern Venezuela, civilians toiled with little support to pull the living and the dead from the rubble. In neighboring Colombia, when residential towers in Cali collapsed, officials poured in to help.
Devastating earthquakes weeks apart in Venezuela and Colombia have exposed sharply different government capacities to respond to disaster, according to witnesses in both countries, aid workers and a security firm.
In Venezuela, civilians led rescue efforts after two back-to-back quakes in late June, finding survivors and victims as confusion, lack of equipment and delayed orders stymied the official response.
In Colombia, civilian volunteers were also vital in the first hours after Monday morning's quake. But at least a dozen official entities were soon on the ground, coordinating the response in the hardest-hit cities, leading to hundreds of rescues in the crucial 72-hour window after the disaster.
Venezuela's twin 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes, which struck especially hard in coastal La Guaira, led to a national death toll currently standing at 6,300 people. The Colombia quake, which had a similar magnitude and was felt in neighboring countries, killed at least 285 people, with some 380 still missing.
To be sure, magnitude is not the only factor determining the damage an earthquake will wreak. In Venezuela, soil instability and the shallowness of the tremors likely contributed to their toll, while the Colombia quake struck much deeper.
However, Venezuela has been battered by shortages, hyperinflation and brain drain for years. The government blames sanctions by the U.S. and other countries, while critics say corruption has sapped state coffers as mismanagement and underinvestment have cratered the country's top industry, oil.
Venezuela's interim government has vehemently denied any problems in its response.
"We did not wait one, two or three days. We acted immediately," interim President Delcy Rodriguez told reporters in early July. She said 4,000 officials had been deployed the first day, rising to 14,000 the next, and lashed out at what she called a "media narrative" of a chaotic response.
DIGGING WITH HANDS
In La Guaira, most buildings of a landmark 1,100-unit social housing block named after late President Hugo Chavez collapsed in the June quakes. Families, neighbors and some local officials spent weeks digging through rubble with bare hands, buckets, and sticks, helped by international rescue teams and a small contingent of Venezuelan federal officials.
Volunteers arriving from other states provided generators, food, water and other supplies. Locals carried bodies out on old mattresses and other bits of debris until one or two forensic specialists appeared several days afterward with body bags.
Locals called for heavy machinery and more official presence at the site, known colloquially as Los Cocos.
A month later, two cranes were operating along with other heavy machinery to remove rubble. Civil protection officials who had tunneled six stories into the rubble needed multiple body bags to contain decaying remains, which they removed with the help of soldiers. An army sergeant whose unit was finding and removing bodies said some of the equipment was broken and they were approaching those still searching for family members to assess who needed help.
Things played out differently at Cali's Torres del Limonar, a five-story residential block in a quiet southern neighborhood of Colombia's third-largest city.
Neighbors and volunteers who pulled some 20 people from the rubble in the first hours were quickly backed up by local firefighters and then joined by more than a dozen official entities, including police and navy rescuers and search and rescue officials from other cities.
Within two days the site was strictly organized, with volunteers allowed only certain jobs in an effort to avoid overcrowding and let rescuers listen for survivors. A constant rotation of dump trucks removed rubble in the shadow of two cranes.
Police forensic staff were in charge of body removal, using metal litters and specialized vehicles.
Humanitarian workers in Colombia, many of whom had only recently returned from Venezuela, praised the efficient, local-level organization in Colombia that helped get heavy machinery to many places, but expressed concern about isolated parts of the country, particularly the coastal Pacific province of Choco.
In Choco, Colombia's poorest province, there were 13 deaths in the quake, with no people registered as missing. However, it already had wide humanitarian needs after decades of state neglect and armed violence, which may be worsened by the quake, the aid workers said.
POLITICAL CROSSROADS
Global Guardian, a Virginia-based private security firm, whose staff helped relocate or support oil, gas and financial sector employees in both countries after the quakes, told Reuters it had a far smoother experience in Colombia than in Venezuela.
There was no access to heavy machinery when his staff arrived in Venezuela, said Tomas Michael Carvallo, senior intelligence analyst at the firm.
"A lot of the immediate search and rescue efforts fell to civilians who were really not equipped to move concrete and collapsed buildings," he said.
The earthquakes struck during important political developments in both countries.
In Venezuela, Washington's capture of President Nicolas Maduro in January has ushered in a rapprochement with the Trump administration, under the leadership of Rodriguez, Maduro's former vice-president.
The top U.S. diplomat in Caracas has not directly addressed criticisms of the Venezuelan government's response to the quake, saying only that Venezuela has complied with requests to advance the humanitarian response.
For Colombia's new right-wing president, Abelardo De La Espriella, the quake has been an early challenge. De La Espriella, who has promised tougher security and austerity measures, was sworn in as the country's new president only three days before the disaster.
Having blasted his predecessor for overspending, De La Espriella is now reviewing a more than $180 billion budget for 2027, even as he pledges emergency funds for the thousands who lost homes and businesses.
An effective response could help De La Espriella shore up support in regions that opposed him, said Tiziano Breda, senior Latin America and Caribbean analyst at conflict monitoring group ACLED.
In Venezuela, "local-level mismanagement is yet more proof of institutional deterioration," Breda said.
Venezuelan authorities arrested four police for alleged looting after the quake, and a much-shared video on social media showed locals yelling at an official who was holding U.S. dollars found in the rubble. Another video showed heavy machinery standing idle due to lack of fuel.
Breda said the acting government may now have an improved chance of making progress in its long-running battle to recover some $4 billion in gold bullion held by the Bank of England, which Caracas has tied to reconstruction efforts.
"It will take many years to return a sense of stability to the two countries, particularly for the children," said World Vision coordinator Mayerly Sanchez. "The emergency has barely begun."
(Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb in Cali and Sarah Morland in Mexico City, additional reporting by Maria Paula Laguna in Mexico City, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
