(ANS – Caracas) – Venezuelan Salesian missionary Fr. Ubaldino Andrade, who normally serves in Africa alongside refugees, has returned temporarily to his home country to visit his family. During his stay, he visited the areas hardest hit by the earthquakes and worked alongside displaced people, volunteers, health care workers, and family members who continue to search for their loved ones among the rubble. His account reflects a tragedy that is no longer making headlines but remains unbearable for the population.

More than a month after the two earthquakes, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, struck northern Venezuela on June 24, the death toll continues to rise. According to the latest official figures, 5,546 people have died, 16,740 have been injured, and 17,907 have lost their homes or are unable to return to them.

Salesian missionary Fr. Ubaldino Andrade, known to everyone as “Uba,” is originally from Venezuela and serves South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda. Accompanied by Salesian Jorge Bastidas and a young woman from the Salesian Youth Movement in Venezuela, he visited La Guaira, where he encountered a population that, despite exhaustion and fading hopes of finding survivors, continues searching for the bodies of loved ones. Here is his account.

“Many people have lost hope of finding their family members alive, but not of at least finding their bodies. People continue to dig with their bare hands,” the Salesian missionary emphasized.

He said it is impossible to fully grasp the scale of the destruction without visiting the affected areas. Entire apartment buildings have collapsed, with upper floors crushed into what are now the new ground floors, while several stories remain buried beneath the debris.

“What reaches us through the media is nothing compared to the immensity of the tragedy. There isn’t a single street where you won’t find a destroyed building or house,” he explained.

Amid the devastation, the missionary highlighted the spontaneous mobilization of thousands of people. Vehicles loaded with water, coffee, rice, arepas, clothing, tools, and flashlights continue to arrive from Caracas and other parts of the country.

Solidarity in the Midst of Tragedy

“They’re not coming just to look. They’re coming to help, to comfort, to clear debris, and to be with their brothers and sisters. To paraphrase St. Paul, where sorrow and misfortune have abounded, solidarity, empathy, and closeness have abounded even more,” Fr. Andrade said.

He and his companions distributed water, fruit juice, clothing, soap, hygiene products, and food to families living in tent camps after losing their homes, possessions, memories, and even personal documents.

Among the donated supplies were simple chocolate cookies. An exhausted doctor, who had been working for days with little sleep, explained how meaningful even that small gesture could be.

“There is so much sadness and such a strong smell of death. A small cookie doesn’t make you want to eat—the sadness is overwhelming—but it can take away that bitter taste we have in our mouths,” the doctor told Fr. Andrade.

The Salesian also reflected on children’s remarkable ability to create moments of normalcy.

“One day, among the tents and rubble, we found a group of children playing inside an old abandoned car, pretending, in the middle of the disaster, to live a normal life. They weren’t wearing shirts because the heat is unbearable.”

Volunteers Continue Searching With Few Resources

At what many now call “ground zero”—the epicenter, where several apartment buildings more than 14 stories tall were crushed as though they were a giant sandwich—people continue to wait for the “moles,” ordinary volunteers with no professional training, to crawl through narrow openings in the rubble in search of victims.

“There aren’t many international rescue teams left. The people are still here: university students, Venezuelan and foreign doctors, forensic pathologists, nurses, and young people who continue digging and searching for bodies,” Fr. Andrade said.

These volunteers urgently need helmets with lights, warm clothing, flashlights, and protective equipment. Health care workers have also requested mosquito nets to enclose their work tents because of the growing number of flies in areas where bodies are still being recovered.

During his visit, Fr. Andrade met a woman still searching for several members of her family. She and one of her children survived only because they were away from home when the earthquakes struck.

“She told us she couldn’t cry because she had to stay strong so her children wouldn’t lose hope. But how long can a person endure under these conditions?” Fr. Andrade asked, while also recalling the miracle of one person being found alive in the disaster zone a month after the earthquakes.

The missionary warned that once the rescue phase ends, another equally difficult challenge will begin: addressing the psychological trauma experienced by survivors, many of whom have not yet been able to process what they have lived through.

For their part, the MISIONES SALESIANAS Mission Office and its Jóvenes y Desarrollo NGO have already allocated more than €350,000 through the “Emergency Venezuela” campaign to support the Salesians’ emergency response and begin planning for reconstruction.

The Salesian response includes distributing food, water, medicine, and hygiene supplies, while also providing medical care, psychosocial support, child protection, emergency education, and assistance in restoring damaged homes and infrastructure. One initiative will support 680 particularly vulnerable families in Caracas, La Guaira, and Carabobo over the next six months. Salesian parishes, schools, and centers remain open to welcome displaced families and serve as collection and distribution points for humanitarian aid. Religious, young people, and volunteers continue traveling daily to the affected communities with whatever resources they are able to gather.

As the day came to an end, Fr. Andrade concluded his account:

“We return home in silence, speechless. But tomorrow will be another day, and we’ll return once more, carrying whatever we are able to bring.”

Source: Misiones Salesianas