Venezuela: Three-year-old rescued and taken to hospital six days after quake

A three-year-old boy has been pulled alive from the rubble six days after the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela, a Jordanian rescue team has said.

Video footage shows rescuers cheering as the child, named as Klieber Morán by the country’s interim president, is pulled from wreckage in La Guaira state.

Delcy Rodríguez described the child’s rescue as a moment of hope.

It comes as UN warned that tens of thousands of people were urgently in need of food and shelter

The death toll from last week’s quakes – with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 – has risen to 1,943 with more than 10,000 people injured and tens of thousands more unaccounted for.

The massive tremors probably damaged or destroyed 58,870 buildings, according to an initial assessment of satellite data from NASA.

The Jordanian civil defence said Klieber had been given first aid treatment, taken to a hospital and his vital signs were good. He was being treated in the capital Caracas, Venezuelan Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said.

The rescue comes well after the initial three-day period immediately after the quake during which experts say people trapped under debris have the best chance of being found alive.

La Guaira is one of the hardest hit areas, with many local people trying to carry out rescue efforts themselves.

The UN’s refugee agency said on Tuesday that food shortages were widespread, basic services had broken down and communications had been largely severed in La Guaira.

“Community tensions are rising as access to assistance remains constrained,” the UNHCR said in a statement on its website.

Daniela Armas, an 18-year-old vendor in La Guaira who was injured falling from a motorbike when the quakes struck, told AFP that some supplies were being distributed “but sometimes people nearly kill each other for food… it’s like a cockfight.”

The UNHCR said that it needed an initial $15m to “scale up protection, core relief items, and temporary shelter support for 30,000 earthquake-affected people over six months”.

Meanwhile the World Health Organization said health services were under “extreme pressure.”

“There’s an increased risk now of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases” such as measles and diphtheria due to low vaccination coverage, Christian Lindmeier said.