A man in his 40s who had been trapped for eight days in the rubble of a powerful earthquake in Venezuela was dramatically rescued after 70 straight hours of work by a multinational rescue team.
According to the AP, AFP and CNN on Tuesday, Hernan Alberto Gil Flores, 43, a night security guard at a shopping center in Catia La Mar in Venezuela's La Guaira state, was trapped in rubble about 9 meters underground when the building collapsed in the earthquake that struck on the 24th of last month. Four days later, on the 28th, rescuers first confirmed his survival signals using acoustic detection equipment and radar.
A multinational joint rescue team then began the operation, led by Chilean rescuers and joined by teams from Venezuela, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico. With the building's unstable structure compounded by heavy rain and aftershocks, dangerous situations repeated as excavation passages collapsed several times. Considering the possibility of further collapse of an adjacent building, the rescue team cut through the metal structure one piece at a time to carefully secure a passage.
While the rescue operation was underway, team members inserted a small camera through cracks in the concrete to check Gil Flores's condition regularly. They continuously supplied water, electrolyte drinks and medical fluids through hoses and syringes to prevent dehydration, and one veteran Chilean rescuer maintained a conversation with him throughout the operation to help keep him psychologically stable. A video released just before the rescue showed him passing the time by drawing pictures himself in the rubble.
A Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer told the AP, "When we first found him, he asked us not to tell his wife he was alive, just in case." "But we had no intention of leaving him," he added.
At disaster sites, the golden window for rescuing survivors is generally considered to be 72 hours. An official from the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team dispatched to the scene told CNN that survival more than seven days after an earthquake was "impossible without a miraculous rescue."
The building's structure also played a part in Gil Flores's ability to survive for eight days. The AP reported that the guard post where he was staying at the time of the collapse retained its shape, so he was not directly crushed by concrete, and an air pocket formed inside that allowed him to keep breathing.
As they watched him being carried on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask and transferred to an ambulance, rescuers from various countries embraced one another and cheered. One rescuer told the AFP, "I had never experienced such a harsh site, and I don't remember a rescue operation lasting this long."
Gil Flores has remained in stable condition since being transferred to a hospital. In an interview with CNN, his wife said she had been preparing for the worst until she heard the news of his survival, adding, "My husband held on just like a hero." The couple has two children, aged 10 and 8.
