MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Glimmers of hope, including the rescue of a Venezuelan security guard trapped under rubble for eight days, persist in Venezuela despite the destruction caused by two powerful earthquakes that ravaged the South American country.
Those assisting in recovery include Miami and Miami-Dade firefighters.
One of those firefighters is Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s Maggie Castro, who spoke to Local 10 News via video call from Venezuela on Thursday. She’s in the country with Florida Task Force One‘s urban search and rescue team and assisting the U.S. Department of State.
She described difficult experiences in the country.
“We had one particular incident a couple of nights ago where we heard (victims) tapping and we were there for about eight hours working on this one site and we continued working until, unfortunately, we no longer heard the signs of life that had us start the mission,” she said. “(Their) son was there and he broke down crying, because he understood that we did try everything that we could. He was so grateful that we never gave up.
“We brought him closure, and that’s sometimes just as important, and sometimes that’s what we can hope, that we could bring these families, it’s such an honor to be able to do this with them.”
Castro described the scale of the destruction as unprecedented.
“The situation is dire,” she said. “The level of destruction is something that a lot of us have never seen before.”
Castro likened the sheer devastation it to another tragedy South Floridians are intimately familiar with.
“This is Surfside in so many different locations,” she said. “There’s just so many different levels of devastation. There are some (buildings) that are completely pancaked. There are some that are still leaning over. The buildings are very unstable. There are some that are partially collapsed with just giant pieces hanging over the top.”
Rescuers’ difficult work continues around the clock in Venezuela. Castro said it’s taken a physical and emotional toll for responders. But she and her colleagues have taken lessons learned from the Surfside collapse ― which became difficult to bear for rescuers ― to heart.
“A lot of advances in the mental health came out of Surfside, which I’m so happy for and it’s something that’s discussed openly in the environment,” she said. “We have little areas where the team can kind of just get together, grab something to eat, and you hear people checking in on each other, you hear people asking each other, ‘How you doing?’ ‘Hey, I heard you guys were out late last night, how was that?’ And everybody’s offering everyone opportunities to talk about what we’re seeing and what we’re doing.
“That’s all that it takes in this type of an environment, is for us to be able to lean on one another, be able to keep an eye on each other’s backs, and everybody is doing that. I have to say that I’m really so incredibly proud of the team, of the way that we’re supporting one another. It’s been really impressive to watch.”
Castro said the mission to save lives fuels their daily efforts.
“The people of Venezuela are so resilient and it’s so important to them to make sure they find all their loved ones, and watching them never give up and never hold back ― whether they’re trained to do this or not ― is something that’s so inspirational to our team.
“As long as we have signs of life, we are there with them.”
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