Survivors tell of ‘brutal and fast’ Venezuela quake as hunt for survivors goes on

Volunteers search for survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building after twin earthquakes hit the city of La Guaira on Venezuela’s Carbbean coast. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Nearly all of Ligia Level’s family lived in a trio of apartment blocks along Hotel Avenue, a seafront sweep of palm-specked resorts and high-rise condos along Venezuela’s Caribbean coast.

When a powerful “doublet” of earthquakes jolted the region on Wednesday afternoon, those buildings and the lives within them came crashing down.