Two major earthquakes struck north-central Venezuela about 40 seconds apart on Wednesday evening, collapsing buildings in Caracas and along the Caribbean coast and sending rescue crews into the rubble well after dark.
The U.S. Geological Survey logged the first shock at magnitude 7.2 and a second, stronger one at 7.5, both shallow at roughly 10 kilometers deep — a pairing that tends to amplify damage at the surface, per CBC. Reporting on the opening tremor varied: the USGS settled on 7.2, but several early bulletins logged it as 7.1. The epicenters clustered in the Yaracuy–Carabobo region between roughly 100 and 170 kilometers west of the capital, near the towns of San Felipe, Morón, Yumare and Montalbán.
