The State Department on Friday laid out how the United States intends to run its earthquake relief mission in Venezuela, pledging relief funds and and dispatching elite rescuers, Navy vessels, military transport planes and even starlink satellite internet into a country Washington's special forces raided barely five months ago.
The plan, detailed by the State Department, names the agency as the lead coordinator for a government-wide effort. Officials said an interagency coordination cell was activated, backed by a dedicated Venezuela Earthquakes Response Task Force stood up within hours of the disaster to gauge needs, line up partners and assist Americans caught in the affected zones.
Relief-Fund Package
Of the $150 million pledged as relief funds, $50 million flows as new bilateral awards to groups already working inside Venezuela, while $100 million goes to the UN humanitarian coordination office's pooled fund for the country. The June 26 release lists the front-line partners as World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, Catholic Relief Services, the International Organization for Migration, UNICEF and the World Food Program — though an earlier department statement had named International Medical Corps in place of UNICEF. Washington said it would also help those organizations handle logistics and coordinate with Venezuela's interim authorities.
Life-Saving Support Teams
On the ground, the centerpiece is a Disaster Assistance Response Team. The department deployed a DART of more than 250 people built around three Urban Search-and-Rescue units — Fairfax County, Virginia; Los Angeles County, California; and Miami-Dade County, Florida — carrying upward of 200,000 pounds of specialized gear. Fairfax (USA-1) traveled with 79 members and six canines, Los Angeles (USA-2) with 74 members and six canines, and Miami-Dade (FLTF-1) with 80 members and six canines, expected to land late Friday. The first plane carrying U.S. crews touched down Friday. Each unit blends collapse-rescue firefighters, physicians, structural engineers and dogs trained to find people buried in rubble, and every team has deployed internationally before.
SOUTHCOM Logistical Support
The military's role is mostly muscle and movement. U.S. Southern Command redirected the USS Fort Lauderdale and the USS Billings toward Venezuela. Air Force C-17 Globemasters are hauling the rescue squads and their heavy load-moving equipment into Caracas, while Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys survey airfields near the quake's epicenter. That airlift matters because of a hard logistical fact: the main international airport serving Caracas suffered structural damage, including a cracked runway, choking the normal flow of supplies. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the War Department would shoulder much of that logistical load and promised a response that, in his words, would be "big," fast and effective.
Restoring Connectivity: The U.S.-Starlink Partnership
A less obvious piece of the plan tackles something collapsing buildings tend to sever: communication. The government is tapping Starlink to switch on free satellite internet across the worst-hit areas, rushing terminals to the ground to reconnect responders, aid groups and stranded residents. That arrangement rests on a two-year memorandum the State Department signed with the company on June 11, 2026, with the new Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response managing the connections — one of the partnership's first real-world tests.
The backdrop gives the operation weight. As NPR noted, this is the administration's most muscular disaster response since it dismantled USAID last year — a shift that included creating the new disaster bureau and rehiring some laid-off staff. The geopolitics are impossible to ignore. The speed of the offer reflects a thaw between Washington and Venezuela's interim government under Delcy Rodríguez, which took power after a January raid seized then-President Nicolás Maduro, and the United States has been Venezuela's largest oil buyer since then. President Trump called the twin quakes the cause of "a devastating number of deaths.
That toll keeps climbing. At least 920 people are confirmed dead and more than 3,000 injured, with roughly 172 still trapped, the National Assembly's president said, while the USGS warned the final figure could go far higher. In the hardest-hit coastal areas, frustrated residents have been clawing through wreckage by hand, calling for volunteers with picks and shovels as the window to find survivors narrows.
