Five days after twin earthquakes devastated Venezuela's coast, the damaged Port of La Guaira has partially reopened - a critical breakthrough for a relief effort that had been bottlenecked by destroyed infrastructure.
The port, located near the epicenter of the second 7.5-magnitude quake, is now receiving aid shipments after a U.S. Navy team worked alongside Venezuelan authorities to restore operations.
The USS Fort Lauderdale has been positioned offshore, with Navy and Marine crews delivering supplies directly to coastal communities by landing craft while the port came back online.
The reopening comes as Venezuela's death toll climbed to 1,719, with more than 50,000 still listed as missing - though rescuers say they're still finding survivors even past the critical 72-hour window.
A Venezuelan official said seven people were pulled from the rubble alive in a single day this week, calling it "one of the miracles of this country."
The U.S. government has more than doubled its financial commitment to the response, now exceeding $300 million, with four search-and-rescue teams and a heavy logistics presence on the ground. Disaster response analysts say the scale and speed of the deployment is notable. "This response has been historic from the outset," said Sam Vigersky, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, pointing to the rapid funding and four search-and-rescue teams deployed within days.
Twelve Americans remain unaccounted for, and three have been confirmed dead. As aftershocks continue to rattle the region, search crews - American, Venezuelan, and international - are still working the rubble side by side, refusing to give up on the thousands still unaccounted for.
For a country and a region carrying the weight of this tragedy, every reopened road and every name found is being met with quiet prayers of relief - and a reminder that even in catastrophe, help keeps arriving.
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