Preview October 2026 News.

On June 24, 2026, 2 earthquakes in a row hit Venezuela, destroying their capitol city of Caracas and surrounding cities. The earthquakes measured R7.2 and R7.5, and were 39 seconds apart. Death toll is currently over 5000 people with an estimated final death count to exceed 100,000 people after full recovery is completed.

Beautiful Caracas, Venezuela in 2025! 

In 2025, Caracas was undergoing the after-effects of a contested Presidential election and the consequential US kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro, the incumbent Venezuelan President whose new election win was disputed by front-runner Venezuelan alternative candidate Juan Guaido. Maduro was accused by Venezuelans of corruption and high inflation as well as the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and efforts at establishing socialist-based diplomatic relations with China's and Cuba's communist governments.

Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez's longtime reign as Former Venezuela President and whose policies led to Maduro taking action as President in the early 2000's to nationalize corporate businesses involving oil harvesting, production and refining that were owned privately by international corporations. 

After US President Trump was elected in 2025, he secretly used US military forces to invade and capture Maduro and his wife and had them brought into the United States to face charges for illegal drug running and human trafficking into the US from Venezuela and also bad international business practices. The Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez assumed the Presidency as Acting President and since that time has repeatedly asked the US to extradite Maduro and his wife back to Venezuela to answer for crimes against the State and also plans to hold new national elections after her term ends. 

Earthquake Casualties and Massive Damage: A National Crisis.

Weeks after the dual, back-to-back 7+ magnitude earthquakes, volunteers and survivors had to search and recover living and dead people from the collapsed rubble that had once been multi-story apartment buildings that housed thousands of people. Complaints from media to the government involved lack of emergency personnel and resources such as fuel, large machinery for rescues and excavations, food, water and personal supplies and temporary housing. Emergency international aid relief with daily food donations and local, civic volunteers made up most if not all of the immediate onsite relief efforts.

The US Secretary of State immediately pledged 150 mil. USD for Venezuela aid following the crisis. UN teams are expected to be deployed but no immediate word has been published about when that is to happen. 

Cleanup operations have been impeded by lack of government personnel, nationwide economic problems and the partial destruction of the Venezuela oil production facilities that are publicly owned and some are connected to the United States oil industry corporations. When taken as a whole, with survivors and volunteers locally only able to work at a snail's pace in working through dangerously unstable rubble and recovering of living and dead trapped beneath, food, water and medicine are in short supply in major affected cities! Although international help is needed and requested at the UN level, rapid responses are still a matter of government priorities, overall onsite safety and preventative measures against corpse related infections from viruses that are sometimes airborne. 

For more about reconstruction efforts after the disasters, please visit the "Reconstructing Gaza" page in the August 2026 News edition of TLO news at this website.

For simple, free video information about concrete strengths in professional engineering terms, please visit the following page: https://youtu.be/mvbrn1oQHq0?si=JK6sCdEuPxsd3thH