The death toll from last week's twin earthquakes in northern Venezuela has risen to 2,295, with more than 11,200 injured, National Assembly president Jorge Rodríguez said on Wednesday, a week after the disaster. Officials have not given a figure for the missing, but tabulations by the political opposition suggest more than 40,000 people remain unaccounted for. The UN, which has agreed with the government to procure 10,000 body bags, expects the toll to keep climbing as the search continues.
The quakes struck on 24 June at 6:04 in the evening, a magnitude 7.2 followed within seconds by a 7.5, with epicentres in Yaracuy state near San Felipe and Yumare. They were the strongest Venezuela has recorded since 1900, felt across the central coast and into Caracas, and followed by hundreds of aftershocks that have only now begun to ease.
