The dust in Caracas does not settle. It hangs in the air, thick and grey, tasting of pulverized concrete and old mortar. Every breath feels heavy.Ten days. It has been ten days since the earth tore itself apart on June 24. They call it the twin earthquakes—7.2 and 7.5—but numbers mean nothing when you are standing in the street watching blocks of apartments fold like paper. The ground still trembles. Over 890 aftershocks now. Every minor shudder sends a jolt of pure adrenaline through my chest, a cruel reminder that the floor beneath us is no longer a certainty.The official reports say 2,645 dead. I look at the mountains of rubble in La Guaira and Caracas, and I know that number is just a fraction of the truth. Tens of thousands are missing. Whole families are simply gone, buried under the weight of collapsed concrete. Nearly 13,000 injured, and the hospitals—already strained before this nightmare—are running on generators, desperate for basic surgical supplies.The contradiction of life right now is staggering. On paper, our population is over 28 million. But when you walk past the 59 temporary shelters, seeing 15,000 homeless neighbors packed into tents and school gymnasiums, numbers lose their abstract comfort. You don't see millions. You see the weeping mother looking for her son. You see the rescue workers, caked in sweat and dirt, digging with their bare hands alongside the international teams.We are surviving on rumors, grief, and the occasional distribution of clean water. The world is watching, sending aid, but inside the city, the silence between the aftershocks is terrifying. We just keep digging. We just keep hoping the ground stays still.
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