As her 180-day mandate expires, Venezuela's acting leader defends quake response

Two major earthquakes in Venezuela has left thousands dead. CTV’s Kimberley Johnson spoke to Ottawa’s Venezuelan community who worry for their relatives.

CARACAS, Venezuela — As public criticism mounted over the pace and efficiency of Venezuela’s earthquake response, the government of acting president Delcy Rodríguez issued its first public defence of the operation with her 180-day mandate as interim leader expiring on Friday.

The powerful twin quakes struck the northern state of La Guaira on June 24, and killed more than 2,295 people, according to the latest government figures. A non-governmental digital database continues to list more than 38,000 people as missing.

Rodríguez, who served as deputy to former president Nicolás Maduro until his January capture by the Trump administration, waited more than an hour after the quakes initially hit before making her first public statement, and held her first news conference on the government response late Thursday — eight days after the quakes.

Rodriguez says search and rescue work continues

Relief organizations typically scramble to find survivors in the first three days after a natural disaster, as the passing of time exponentially diminishes hope for finding signs of life. But exhausted rescuers were still digging across the hard-hit communities of La Guaira on Friday, encouraged by Thursday’s dramatic rescue of a 43-year-old security guard from a collapsed mall basement after nearly eight days under the rubble.

Even with some international teams packing up to go home, Rodríguez late Thursday insisted that the government was not winding down rescue efforts.

“We have not closed the search-and-rescue phase. We are still in that stage because, according to our overall assessment, there are still active sites where we believe there may be survivors, even if there is only one,” she told reporters in a testy news conference, where she pushed back against the criticism of the state’s rescue efforts for the first time since the quakes struck.

Blames outrage over quake response on propaganda

Rodríguez blamed public outrage over the government’s response on what she called “narratives manufactured in propaganda laboratories,” claiming that rescue crews deployed immediately with adequate equipment to disaster zones — contrary to widespread complaints by residents that they were left alone to search for their loved ones without official teams or heavy machinery for the first 48 hours.

“Those propaganda operations, driven by partisan political interests, are despicable,” she said. “We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately.”

She went on to say that 11 international field hospitals, along with health workers from 33 countries, had been deployed to quake-affected areas, adding that the government had approved the creation of a fund to receive donations for reconstruction.

The United Nations Development Program estimates that the quakes caused US$6.7 billion in physical damage in Venezuela, or roughly 6% of the country’s gross domestic product. That does not cover other long-term recovery and reconstruction costs.

The comments from Rodríguez, who became interim leader with the backing of the Trump administration after Maduro’s ouster, appeared aimed at showing her government was in control of the response. In recent months, she has overseen business-friendly reforms of the country’s lucrative oil sector under U.S. pressure but shown no urgency in returning Venezuela to democracy.

No word on what happens after mandate expires

Under Venezuela’s constitution, temporary absences are to be filled by the vice president — which was Rodríguez’s former role — for up to 90 days, after which they can be extended by the national assembly for an additional 90 days.

On Friday, that 180-day interim period expired. There was no immediate comment from authorities on what, if anything, they would do in response to the expiration of Rodríguez’s mandate. The National Assembly, controlled by Rodríguez’s party, can trigger a snap election if lawmakers declare the post permanently vacant.

More broadly, no timetable has been given for the process of holding democratic elections, with the Trump administration saying before the earthquake that a vote would take place once Venezuela and its economy have been stabilized.

Opposition leader pledges to return to Venezuela

Maduro claimed victory in a 2024 election in which the opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, was banned from running. An independently verified vote count carried out by the opposition found that Machado’s candidate was the real winner.

Machado has pledged to return from exile to help with the earthquake recovery. Earlier this week she accused Rodríguez’s government of closing the airspace ahead of her flight to Venezuela to block her return. The Trump administration has repeatedly praised Rodríguez’s earthquake efforts and largely turned its back on Machado.

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Regina Garcia Cano and Isabel Debre, The Associated Press

DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.