LA GUAIRA, Venezuela (AP) — With the window for finding survivors shrinking fast, Venezuelans combed Monday through more ruins of buildings toppled by last week’s powerful back-to-back earthquakes, and attention turned to the country's humanitarian crisis that could persist for years.

Relief organizations say the first 72 hours after a natural disaster is the most crucial time period for rescues, though survival can be extended if people have access to food and water. Five days after the twin quakes, questions loomed about whether the cash-strapped government will be able to coordinate the effort needed to care for thousands of people who have been left homeless.

In other developments, a 4.6 magnitude aftershock rumbled through the disaster zone in the northern state of La Guaira.

The death toll stood at more than 1,700 people, according to the government, which has long retained tight control over news media.

Venezuelan government promotes its efforts

Facing criticism that authorities have done too little, too slowly, government officials aggressively promoted their recovery and rescue efforts. Police and military officers on Monday handed out cans of tuna and crackers to hungry displaced people in La Guaira.

In a speech, Jorge Rodríguez, the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly and brother of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, said electricity had been restored to 90% of the hardest-hit state of La Guaira. He said authorities were racing to evaluate damaged buildings that still posed a danger and had set up 15 temporary displacement camps.

Many Venezuelan news reports have avoided politically delicate questions related to the earthquake, such as the widespread collapse of buildings, sticking instead to safer stories about heroic rescues. Delcy Rodríguez, who came to power in January after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seized former President Nicolás Maduro, shared footage Monday of emergency workers lifting a man out of the ruins to applause after a 43-hour search effort.

“Each life saved is a victory for hope,” she wrote on X.

Such bright spots are rare at the quake's epicenter, where families keep vigil at search sites.

“We have to stay strong, even without food, without sleep,” said Ana Rada, watching as civil defense workers looked for her brother. “Until I see the body, I still have hope.”

Aftershock rattles rescuers

After what the government said were more than 600 aftershocks since Wednesday's quakes, a moderate temblor on Monday struck 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Caraballeda on Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and measured 4.6 magnitude, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Jorge Rodríguez said there were no reports of damage, but the shock sent residents in the capital of Caracas screaming into the streets.

“Here we are again, back in the street. I don’t know when we’ll have a moment of true peace,” said Concepción Hernández, 51, evacuating her apartment in the Chacao municipality of Caracas.

Questions over extent of US help

Dozens of countries have offered assistance. But the disaster has raised expectations for the Trump administration after its takeover of Venezuela’s oil industry earlier this year.

In a briefing with reporters, a senior State Department official said 300 first responders sent from the U.S. are working on the ground and two dozen C-17 military transport planes arrive every day with supplies. Financial support from the U.S. now exceeds $300 million.

The U.S. military is also assisting with repairs at the port in La Guaira to allow an influx of relief supplies by sea and manage air traffic after the quakes destroyed part of the control tower at Simón Bolívar International Airport in Caracas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

It seemed unlikely, however, that the Trump administration would grant temporary humanitarian protections to Venezuelans as previous administrations have done for people from disaster-stricken countries already in the U.S. Such action was taken after earthquakes in 2010 in Haiti and 2001 in El Salvador.

Venezuelans have been a major focus of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. More than 100 Venezuelans recently deported from the U.S. were being held at a hotel in the country when the quake hit, and many are now missing, survivors say.

Rescuers included a miner deported from the US

Among the rescuers digging through the rubble Monday was 31-year-old miner Jean Sosa, who said he was deported from the U.S. in January over a missed immigration court hearing and returned to Caracas last month, dazed by an odyssey that began in shackles at an Arizona immigration detention center.

He had built a new life in New York City over the past four years, he said, working at a taco stand near Penn Station, before Department of Homeland Security officials detained him. They ultimately shuttled him between immigration detention centers across the U.S. before leaving him and a busload of other deportees in southern Mexico without his passport, phone or wallet. He then paid his way back to Venezuela.

Since arriving Wednesday in La Guaira, Sosa has scrambled to pull people from the rubble with his old mining pickaxe in the absence of national rescue teams.

“Many people could have been saved if there had been equipment and support from top authorities from the very beginning,” he told The Associated Press, wearing a helmet and a black T-shirt splotched with dust in the port city where he said he had already rescued 20 people alive.

Those rescues heartened him, he said, despite the lack of supplies. “We’re working without gloves, without equipment, borrowing supplies, improvising bandages and whatever else we can.”

The full scale of damage remains unclear

Experts are struggling to assess the scope of damage, but they generally agree that the government's figures are a vast undercount.

Many Venezuelans are skeptical of official pronouncements, particularly since Maduro's government claimed victory in the 2024 presidential election despite a vote count showing he had lost to the opposition movement led by María Corina Machado.

The now-exiled opposition leader has criticized the government response to the earthquake and on Monday accused it of temporarily closing the airspace to prevent her from returning to the country. She did not offer evidence.

Jorge Rodríguez said that as of Monday, the earthquake had affected a total of 15,866 people. The United Nations, meanwhile, says that up to 6.8 million of Venezuela’s nearly 30 million residents may be affected — which could mean being displaced or losing access to electricity and water. The Venezuelan Red Cross said it expected to address the needs of at least 300,000 people for the next two years.

While Rodríguez said the number of damaged or collapsed buildings had reached 855, a preliminary assessment by NASA put that number at 58,870 buildings. The assessment relied on radar imagery from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, which can detect changes to infrastructure.

The updates to government figures are given in brief televised announcements where journalists have no opportunity to ask questions or request more details. In another obstacle to coverage, the Venezuelan press union said Monday that the Ministry of Communication was blocking access to La Guaira for at least some foreign reporters for 48 hours.

It said the ministry cited the need “to reduce noise during rescue operations." The union urged the government to drop the restriction: “As hours pass, the health situation may worsen, and the country needs verified and timely information.”

Because of the chaos and poor phone service, many Venezuelans have turned to non-governmental digital databases to report their loved ones as missing. More than 50,000 people were reported missing on one such database, though it is unclear how many have been found.

Firefighter Kleider Carrillo said nothing prepared him for the destruction in La Guaira.

“When you study for this profession, you’re trained for situations like this," he said. “But what's in textbooks is one thing. Reality is another.”

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in Tijuana, Mexico, contributed to this report.

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