Operation Blessing Deploys to Venezuela as Twin Earthquakes Kill Hundreds — Death Toll Still Climbing

By Pastor Duke Taber Jun 26, 2026 0CategoryChristianityTag - News

By Pastor Duke Taber

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A Christian disaster relief organization is already on the ground in Venezuela as the nation reels from a catastrophic back-to-back earthquake event that has killed at least 589 people and left thousands more injured, missing, and buried under rubble — with the final toll expected to climb far higher.

Operation Blessing International announced it is deploying its Global Disaster Response team to Venezuela following two powerful earthquakes that struck the country on Wednesday evening, June 25, 2026. Drew Friedrich, the organization’s president, said families in Venezuela were facing “unimaginable loss and uncertainty” and that the response team was moving quickly to bring help.

The quakes were the most powerful to strike Venezuela in more than a century — and the human cost is staggering.

What Happened: A Double Disaster in Seconds

Two major earthquakes struck northern Venezuela on June 24, 2026, roughly 39 seconds apart. The first, a magnitude 7.2, hit about 23 kilometers southeast of Yumare. It was followed almost immediately by a magnitude 7.5 tremor near the same area. The 7.5-magnitude tremor was the strongest to hit Venezuela since 1900.

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck near San Felipe, about 284 kilometers west of Caracas, at 6:04pm on Wednesday, followed almost immediately by a magnitude 7.5 quake near Yumare, about 293 kilometers west of the capital, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Many Venezuelans were at home when the earthquakes struck because Wednesday was a public holiday marking a decisive 1821 battle in Venezuela’s war of independence from Spain.

The human stories coming out of Caracas and the surrounding region are devastating. Amparo Díaz was at home in a fourth-floor apartment building in the Chacao municipality when a powerful tremor made her feel her life was in danger. “How did I experience it? Tragic. I thought I was going to die. I had to throw myself to the ground and pray to God because it was the only thing I could think of,” she told CNN.

Maria Alejandra, an earthquake survivor in Caracas, said she was in her building when the quakes struck. “I managed to get dressed as all the walls cracked. We somehow managed to get the door open. There was a cloud of dust that made it impossible to see. When we went downstairs, it looked like something out of a horror movie. We had to climb over the rubble from the building. I only saw one family make it out.”

The Death Toll — and What Is Still Coming

The numbers are still in motion, and they are grim. The death toll has risen to at least 589, with nearly 3,000 people confirmed injured, according to acting President Delcy Rodríguez as of Friday.

The U.S. Geological Survey projected the death toll would most likely reach into the thousands, with a substantial probability of exceeding 10,000. At least 18 foreign nationals were among those killed, including nine from Portugal, three from Spain, two from Brazil, two from China, and two from Chile.

At least 1,520 people were injured and at least 250 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The worst-affected area was La Guaira state, near Caracas, which interim President Delcy Rodriguez called “a disaster zone.”

Rescue workers were scarce in the coastal capital of La Guaira, where volunteers dug through rubble with their bare hands. Three children were among at least eight people killed in Moron, a town near the epicenter in Carabobo state.

A website set up to track missing people, shared by leaders from Venezuela’s opposition, listed more than 35,000 people as unaccounted for as of Thursday afternoon.

La Guaira resident Yamileth Jimenez said her 19-year-old son was believed trapped in the rubble of their seven-story apartment building. Pedro Perez, 64, the owner of an upholstery workshop in La Guaira, said he lost both his home and his business and had been forced onto the streets with his wife and children.

The scale of this disaster — falling on a nation already weakened by years of economic collapse — makes Venezuela’s suffering among the most acute humanitarian crises in the world right now. For believers who want to understand how Scripture calls us to respond to the suffering of our neighbors, see How to Pray for Someone Who Is Seriously Ill and Examples of Compassion in the Bible.

Operation Blessing Responds: The Church Moves First

While governments are still organizing their logistics, Operation Blessing is already moving.

The response team will be led by Senior Director Diego Traverso and includes a medical doctor, chef, clean water specialist, and logistics experts.

This is not the first time Traverso has led a difficult deployment in Venezuela’s region. In 2019, he led Operation Blessing’s response to Venezuelan refugees crossing into Colombia — an effort that lasted 108 days and helped an estimated 22,000 people.

Operation Blessing is a Christian humanitarian organization founded by Pat Robertson that has deployed relief workers to disaster zones on every continent. Its Global Disaster Response team is trained for exactly these scenarios: collapsed infrastructure, medical emergencies, contaminated water, and displaced populations with nowhere to go.

This is what the Body of Christ is called to look like in a crisis. When governments are still holding press conferences, the Church is already deploying. When bureaucracies are debating jurisdiction, believers are climbing over rubble to pull people out.

As Scripture declares:

“Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” — James 1:27, NKJV

Why Venezuela Was So Vulnerable

This disaster did not strike an equal playing field. Venezuela came into these earthquakes already broken — and that made everything worse.

Former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro was seized in January during a U.S. operation, further straining already tense relations with Washington. Acting President Rodríguez has only recently begun efforts to revive growth, with public services buckling under strain, hospitals short of equipment and medication, and frequent power outages, leaving emergency response stretched thin. The earthquakes have exposed the fragility of a system already pushed to its limits.

Before the earthquakes, 8 million people in Venezuela already required humanitarian aid.

Venezuela has one of the most restricted media landscapes in the world, which made it difficult for residents or concerned loved ones abroad to gain information about damage or casualties. More than 200 websites in the country are blocked, including local and international news, social media sites, and censorship circumvention tools like VPNs. The U.N.’s Venezuela human rights mission urged the government to lift restrictions on some social media, calling it “a matter of life and death.”

About 80 percent of the population in Venezuela lives in quake-prone areas, and many live in houses that are not built to withstand strong earthquakes. In the hard-hit area of Altamira in Caracas, many of the buildings that collapsed are built on sediments, which makes them much more vulnerable to seismic waves. There is also a large amount of informal housing across the country, and those types of buildings are not prepared to sustain very strong earthquakes.

Venezuela sits on the boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates and has endured major earthquakes, including one in 1812 that killed an estimated 30,000 people.

International Response: The World Shows Up

In the days following the disaster, the international response has been substantial — and telling.

U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. was “ready, willing and able to help” and pledged to “be there for our new and great friends.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said rescue teams were being deployed and that the Pentagon would send assets to the damaged Caracas airport.

U.S. Southern Command said it was “surging” military forces in the region to assist in earthquake relief efforts. Two U.S. Navy ships — the USS Fort Lauderdale and the USS Billings — and aircraft in the Caribbean have been assigned to support U.S. quake relief operations being led by the State Department.

Several countries with earthquake-response experience, including Mexico, Chile, and El Salvador, are sending emergency teams and medical supplies.

U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher said the organization was coordinating the rapid deployment of international rescue teams and warned that a massive collective effort would be needed.

Venezuela’s acting President declared the militarization of La Guaira state. “Our Bolivarian Armed Forces are in the state to address this situation affecting our people,” she said. “No one here has slept a minute since we set the vital goal of rescuing these people.”

A Pastoral Word: The Church’s Call in a Broken World

Moments like this are a reminder that the call to serve the suffering is not optional for the people of God. It is at the center of who we are. The early church was known throughout the Roman Empire not for its political power but for its willingness to run toward suffering when everyone else ran away.

We serve a God who heals, restores, and moves through ordinary believers to bring His mercy into extraordinary crises. Whether through prayer, giving, or direct deployment, every member of the Body of Christ has a role in responding to something like this.

If you want to give to Operation Blessing’s Venezuela relief effort, you can do so directly at operationblessing.org.

And as we pray for Venezuela, let these words from Scripture anchor our intercession:

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” — James 5:13–14, NKJV

For more on how Scripture calls believers to respond in suffering and crisis, see How to Pray for Someone Who Is Seriously Ill, 10 Bible Verses About Healing Every Christian Should Know, and What to Do When Healing Doesn’t Come the Way You Expected.

For resources on how to pray with biblical authority in a crisis, explore the 13 Bible Study Lessons on Prayer available now at AnsweredFaith.com.

Related AnsweredFaith.com Articles:

Sources

The Christian Post — “Christian group responds to Venezuela earthquakes as thousands feared dead” — Anugrah Kumar, June 25, 2026. christianpost.com
CNN — “June 24–25, 2026 — Venezuela rocked by 7.5 and 7.2 magnitude earthquakes” — live updates, June 25–26, 2026. cnn.com
CNN — “Live updates: Over 500 dead in Venezuela earthquakes as rescuers race to find victims” — June 26, 2026. cnn.com
Al Jazeera — “Venezuela earthquakes kill at least 188 people, injure 1,520” — June 25, 2026. aljazeera.com
ABC News — “Venezuela earthquakes live updates: Death toll rises to at least 589” — June 26, 2026. abcnews.com
NPR — “Venezuela earthquakes death toll climbs as rescue efforts continue” — June 26, 2026. npr.org
Miyamoto International — “Venezuela Earthquake Update: Magnitude 7.5 and 7.2 Quakes” — June 26, 2026. miyamotointernational.com

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