Image source, BBC, Getty ImagesNicole Kolster says people in Caracas evacuated to the streets, fearing further aftershocks
ByTiffanie Turnbull, Kelly Ng and Leire Ventas, BBC News Mundo
When the ground beneath Venezuela started violently rocking on Wednesday evening, Verónica feared the walls of her Caracas apartment would bury her.
“I thought I was going to die,” she told BBC Mundo.
She was at home celebrating a national holiday with her mother when tremors from two earthquakes hit the city, seconds apart, around 18:00 local time (22:00 GMT): the first at a magnitude of 7.2 and the second at 7.5.
More than 30 people have been confirmed dead so far and hundreds more are injured – but authorities have warned they have not even begun to gauge the losses in some of the hardest hit areas.
Debris is strewn around the streets of Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, as rescuers dig through the wreckage of collapsed buildings to locate survivors. In some footage, people can be heard calling for help.
Across other affected parts of Venezeula, a picture of the damage is still emerging as power and internet outages add to the chaos.
As night fell, dazed locals – many rendered functionally homeless – milled the streets, waiting for news on their homes or loved ones.
Verónica is the sister of BBC Mundo’s Valentina Oropeza – and the journalist spent hours trying to track down her family after the quakes.
Valentina’s phone had pinged with a breathy voice message from Verónica describing the “awful” tremors in real time, their mother’s voice distant in the background. Then radio silence.
Image source, Getty ImagesAuthorities expect the death toll to climb in the coming days
Panicked, Valentina began asking her network for help to contact the pair as images of crushed buildings on their street began filling her phone.
When she finally was able to reach them, Verónica confirmed she and her mother were safe but said she has likely lost her home.
“The building is completely destroyed, the walls are cracked.”
This is not the first time the Venezuelan capital has been hit by a major earthquake.
In 1967, a 6.6-magnitude quake struck Caracas and killed more than 200 people, destroying buildings in Palos Grandes and the upper-class area of Altamira.
Watch: Moment earthquake hits Venezuela and leaves buildings collapsed
But the ones on Wednesday felt worse – much longer and more intense, said Valentina’s mother.
“I never thought we would experience something like this,” she said, audibly shaken.
Coro Martinez, a resident in eastern Caracas, told Reuters news agency the same.
“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” the 56-year-old said.
“There was a very loud crash. Things fell in the house, jugs inside the refrigerator.”
BBC Mundo journalist Nicole Kolster saw the windows of her seventh storey apartment in Palos Grandes, a prime district in central Caracas, begin to shake and and had just moments to shelter.
“The only thing I could think to do was to get between the front door and a stone wall… to try to protect myself.”
“I thought the building was going to fall on top of me.”
Image source, ReutersPeople ride past a collapsed building after the earthquake in La Guaira
Evacuating to the street, she said she could hear voices coming from mountains of rubble. Survivors – so rushed to flee they had not paused to put on shoes – were hugging and crying.
“There are people who are very sad, powerless because they couldn’t get their pets out,” Kolster says.
Alan Chung, a teacher in Caracas, is one such person, facing an anxious wait to see whether his two cats have survived.
“Unfortunately I’ve not been able to get back to my apartment to see if they are okay… fingers crossed,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Image source, ReutersMore than 700 people have been injured, authorities say
Information flow from places like La Guaira – the most affected state, north of Caracas – has been hampered by infrastructure damage.
But images and footage from the area show flattened buildings, large fires, and people using their cars as makeshift beds.
Those unable – or too scared – to return to their homes have set up tents in the streets, and the injured have flooded field hospitals in the state capital.
Interim President Delcy Rodríguez said “dozens” of buildings had collapsed in the city, calling it a “disaster zone” and a “true tragedy”.
The situation is so dire authorities have not yet been able to estimate how many people have died.
Other hard-hit regions include the states of Miranda, Aragua, Carabobo and Falcón.