Week after deadly quakes, rescuers close in on trapped Venezuelan survivor

Hundreds of rescuers were working late Wednesday to save a 43-year-old Venezuelan man who has survived for seven days trapped beneath the ruins of a collapsed seven-storey building, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Hernan Gil, a security guard, has been trapped inside his booth beneath the building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area heavily destroyed by twin earthquakes on June 24 measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5.

Rescue teams from seven countries — Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico — have been working continuously for three days to reach him.

By Wednesday evening, rescuers said they were less than one metre away from Gil’s location.

Chile’s fire service shared a video on Instagram showing Gil inside the confined space, moving his head and looking towards the camera. He was wearing a face mask and appeared to have a bloodshot right eye.

“This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife, Gusbimar Gonzalez, told AFP.

She said she was amazed to see teams from multiple countries working together in an effort to save one person.

The rescue operation came as hopes of finding more survivors had begun to decline, seven days after the devastating earthquakes that killed nearly 2,300 people and left thousands missing.

While teams worked to reach Gil, other rescuers monitored a nearby building that was at risk of further collapse.

Since Monday, rescue workers have reinforced the damaged structure with wooden and iron supports to prevent it from falling further. They have provided Gil with water to keep him hydrated and installed a tube to supply fresh air.

Teams have been digging from two different directions to reach him.

“This is a very complicated structure to access,” Chilean rescue team leader Cristian Vera told AFP, explaining that large concrete pillars had made reaching Gil’s exact location difficult.

An earlier plan to build a 60-by-60-centimetre tunnel was abandoned on Tuesday after the building shifted slightly.

“We had to create a new work plan and find another way in than the route we had been using until last night,” Vera said.