Three Americans have died in the Venezuela earthquakes and 12 remain missing, the State Department has said, as rescue teams continued to search for survivors in the rubble on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the State Department said officials were in contact with the family of three Americans killed when twin earthquakes devastated the country last Wednesday. Their identities have not been revealed.
The official death toll has surpassed 1,700 people, according to the government, which maintains tight control over news media.
Rescue teams from Ecuador and the US halted operations early on Tuesday in Macuto, a town in La Guaira state — the area hardest hit by the 24 June earthquakes — after more than 40 hours of work, when they stopped receiving responses from a mother and her three children trapped beneath a nine-storey building.
"In the end, we believe the days have already passed and that what we will find now is death," said Major Jorge Montanero, leader of the EQ11 team from Guayaquil, located on Ecuador's Pacific coast.
"Unfortunately, things haven't developed favourably," he said as he stood amid rubble after cutting through four concrete slabs of the building in an effort to locate the four trapped victims.
Some 59,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed by the twin earthquakes — which hit just seconds apart with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 on June 24 — according to NASA estimates. The widespread devastation can be seen from space.
A State Department task force has fielded more than 300 inquiries from Americans seeking advice. A second official said they estimate there are approximately 5,000 US citizens in Venezuela.
Not all collapsed buildings have had professional rescue teams on site, with relatives and neighbours working to remove debris to pull out survivors or bodies, according to survivors and residents from various areas.
"There is no doubt we are facing a figure higher than what has already been reported. I can offer an estimate: we are procuring — and this has been agreed with local authorities — 10,000 body bags," Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations' resident coordinator in Venezuela, said on Monday from his office in Venezuela's capital, Caracas.
The government of acting President Delcy Rodriguez says at least 1,750 people have died and thousands have been injured as a result of the earthquakes. About 16,000 people were left homeless.
A website promoted by the country's political opposition puts the number of people still missing at around 43,000.
