Venezuela interim president rejects gov reacted too slowly to quakes

Venezuela's Interim President Delcy Rodriguez rejected allegations her government reacted too slowly to destruction caused by two earthquakes.

Rodriguez said the death toll now stood at 2,595, and her government was not yet ending its search and rescue efforts.

She did not give a tally for the missing.

An unofficial but widely used online list was down to some 38,500 after peaking at nearly 60,000 in the days immediately after the quakes.

Speaking in her first press conference since the US ousted her predecessor Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez defended her government's response to the earthquakes. Rodriguez decsribed the quakes as "a natural tragedy on a scale that could never be imagined."

She said her government "did not wait one, two or three days, it acted immediately."

Rodriguez said her government "had done everything in its power and more" to help resuce and recovery efforts.

She said four thousand officials were deployed, immediately rising to 14,000 the day after and then to a current figure of 19,000.

Rodriguez said she also issued an emergency decree to activate emergency protocols.

Civilians of all stripes have descended on disaster areas, especially the hardest-hit northern state of La Guaira, since the 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude quakes struck on June 24th.

Many of those digging through the rubble, along with international aid organisations, say the Venezuelan government's response was slow and ineffectual, with aid like food and medical supplies delayed and an ongoing lack of heavy machinery to move debris.

Dramatic footage of earthquake survivors continues to emerge.

Rescuers pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from a collapsed basement, ending a grueling dayslong operation.

Hernan Alberto Gil Flores emerged to safety atop a stretcher surrounded by helmet-clad rescue workers.

Rescuers, who initially made contact with him over the weekend, worked for more than 100 hours to free him, navigating a highly unstable structure, torrential rain and persistent aftershocks to tunnel down to the survivor.

The rescue was considered a small miracle cutting through a week of tragedy.

By supplying Gil Flores with food and water while they excavated the concrete, rescue teams were able to keep him alive far longer than the 48- to 72-hour threshold most operations give to find survivors in disasters.

A 6-year-old dog named Buddy was pulled out alive fter spending eight agonising days trapped beneath his collapsed home in the city of Caraballeda.