Two days after a pair of violent earthquakes flattened neighborhoods across northern Venezuela, an international relief operation gathered pace on Friday, with governments from across the Americas and beyond rushing rescuers, medics and military hardware into a country whose own emergency services had already been overrun.
The catastrophe began on the evening of June 24, when a magnitude 7.2 tremor was followed barely 40 seconds later by a 7.5 shock, both originating in Yaracuy state to the west of the capital, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and seismic records. Scientists called it the most powerful event to strike the country in more than a century.
