Rescuers pull a 43-year-old security guard alive from the collapsed basement of a building in Venezuela’s coastal La Guaira region early Thursday, ending an eight-day rescue effort after back-to-back earthquakes. Multiple reports identify the man as Hernán Alberto Gil Flores (also referred to as Hernan Gil). According to accounts, an international response team makes contact with him over the weekend and later establishes a method to support him during the operation, including passing water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft while rescuers navigate unstable rubble.
Rescue teams continue for days as they work to access the trapped man in the basement area of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping centre (also described as a collapsed shopping centre in La Guaira). Rescuers extract him safely and carry him out on a stretcher. The operation takes place about eight days after the earthquakes hit the region, and the survivor’s rescue becomes a widely cited example of hope amid broader damage and rising concerns about people still missing or trapped in the aftermath.
