Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Venezuelan airport outside Caracas reopens after back-to-back earthquakes

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Venezuelan airport outside Caracas reopens after back-to-back earthquakes · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Right now, people in northern Venezuela are racing against time
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: to pull survivors from the rubble of collapse buildings after
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a pair of powerful earthquakes leveled buildings. Over fifteen hundred
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: people were injured in the magnitude seven point one and
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: seven point five quakes. At least one hundred and eighty
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: eight people were killed, but many more are feared dead.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: And this video shows the moment a house collapse, sending
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: residents scrambling to take cover. In an area outside Caracas,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: a man filmed himself running through the street calling out
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for his mother amid the devastation, and this was the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: moment rescue workers and volunteers cheered when they pulled a
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: survivor from a mountain of rubble. The woman says when
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the shaking started, she clung onto a door frame so
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: tightly that she broke her finger until everything collapsed. At
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: least one hundred buildings were leveled in one coastal state alone.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: People here in the US have been scrambling to reach
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: their family members and send aid. CBS News course, but
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Christian Benevitez is live at the airport in Bobata, Colombia,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: so Christian. What can you tell us about rescue efforts
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in Venezuela right now.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Juliet, Well, look, it's been it's a difficult journey to
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: try to get into Venezuela. But we just got warned
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: not too long ago that one of the airports is
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: now running a Valencia, which is located near Caracas. The
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: airport in Caracas, just to set the scenes, so many
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: have seen those images of just the devastation inside of
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: the airport in Caracas is not up and running just yet,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: but Valencia is now. It was a catastrophic one two
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: punch that devastated much of the northern coast of Venezuela.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: It was two major earthquakes within minutes of each other.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Multiple buildings collapsed into the streets, sending people running for
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: their lives. The coastal city of La Vuyda is being
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: described as a disaster selling now. Inside the country's main airport,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: as I mentioned, passengers were seen fleeing as parts of
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the terminal's roof collapsed, which is why that airport is
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: not up and running now. High rises turned to rubble,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Entire facades just peeled off. More than one hundred buildings
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: lying in ruin. As far as what's happening with the rescue.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: With the res rescue workers are short on heavy equipment.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: They were seen moving big chunks of rubble with their
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: bare hands. We've seen some of those scenes that have
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: played out on social media, that have been posted on
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: places such as Eggs of those miraculous images of survival.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, there is just so much
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: carnage and so much devastation all throughout the northern part
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of Venezuela. Officials are fearing that the death toll could
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: be much much higher than where it currently stands. It
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: says at least one point eighty. But you got to
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: remember that there are thousands that are missing, tens of
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: thousands of people currently sleeping on the streets because of
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: the potential for aftershocks, and because a lot of those
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: buildings are no longer structurally sound Christian.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: The State Department says the US will provide aid to Venezuela.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: So what will that look like in terms of the US's.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Help, right, Well, you've got to remember that this is
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a much different relationship between the US and Venezuela. The
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: US and Venezuela are now working partners. We know that
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: the US has pledged one hundred and fifty million dollars
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: in aid and has mobile owning much needed support. Secretary
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: of State Mark Ruby earlier today saying that they have
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: many collapsed buildings and they'll need a lot of help
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: in terms of digging through that. So we do know
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: that the Department of Defense is also moving resources into
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the area. But again, just got to reiterate that there
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: is growing frustration over the lack of heavy machinery to
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: lift what's left of those collapsed buildings that still have
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: people who are trapped inside. Juliette.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and time is of the essence. Christian Benavidez, Christian,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: thank you. So I want to bring in Miroel, just
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Darren pat to talk more about this. We're talking about
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: at least thirty after shocks have struck Venezuela since those
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: two powerful earthquakes. Not to mention the country particularly vulnerable
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to earthquakes because it's on an active tectonic boundary. So
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: what else do we know?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: A lot of really poor construction, and that's why I
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: think we should probably prepare ourselves for the number of
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: fatalities to go up in the next two days from
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: what we're hearing. But first let's talk about what the
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: most important part of this is. There's going to be
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: aftershocks to this. It's two seven plus magnitude earthquakes. We
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: actually call that a double it. It's a technical USGS
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: technological term when you have two significant earthquakes like that.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: That happened one right after the but the big one
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: was seven point five, the other one was pretty close
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: to that. Let's come over this way. USGS has been
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: able to put out pretty specific forecasts during big events
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  Speaker 3: like this. It's going to look a little odd behind me,
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  Speaker 3: but what you're looking at is the probability forecast for
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  Speaker 3: the intensity of earth of aftershocks. So here I've got
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: some good news on this. There's a bunch of color
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: bars on here. The one I want to talk about
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  Speaker 3: is the possibility of a magnitude six point zero aftershock,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: because earlier today there was about a forty percent chance
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: we would likely still see after shocks, or at least
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: an after shock as strong as a six point zero,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: which in its own right is a significant earthquake. But
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: when you put that on top of the compromised buildings
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: all over this part of Venezuela, now that's a very
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: big concern. I have some good news on that. Here's
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: the orange number up here, so it's a twenty percent chance,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: all right. On the downside, there's still a twenty percent
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: chance that we could still have an after shock. That
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  Speaker 3: it's c six point zero, but earlier today it was
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: forty percent. My point is the farther we get in
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  Speaker 3: time here without getting any of those real significant after shocks,
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the odds go down. But if you look at the
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: numbers here, there are still very high probabilities of magnitudes
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: threes and fours. They're going to have them. They're going
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  Speaker 3: to keep going. Right now, the official fatality counts in
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  Speaker 3: the hundreds. I know this looks odd too, but the
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: USGS has been putting together these probability forecasts for a
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: very unpleasant statistics when major earthquakes like this happen. It's
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: the likely fatalities. What I just draw our attention to
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: is the probabilities here point to numbers being in the
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: tens of thousands. We're not going to try and put
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: an exact number on it, but I'm just trying to
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: prepare the notion of this is in early part of
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: this story, and we will probably have to deal with
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: the numbers of fatalities going much larger than what we've
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: been hearing in the very initial reports. So developing story
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: for sure, Juliet, thank you, Darren, thank you.