«Jóvenes para siempre»: Adolescente sobreviviente del terremoto de Venezuela llora a sus amigas – AlbertoNews

Maria Alejandra Sanz turned away when she heard rescue workers had pulled the lifeless body of one of her best friends from the rubble of a building leveled by twin earthquakes that struck the state of La Guaira in northern Venezuela last month.

Por Reuters

The 17-year-old high school student had lain in near-darkness for 17 hours after the June 24 quakes, ​trapped beneath the collapsed building in the coastal town of La Guaira where she had grown up, drinking her own urine to survive and assuming the other members of her dance troupe were dead.

Of the group of 10 ‌friends who had been preparing a routine for their high school graduation, four did not make it out alive.

«I’m fine,» Sanz said unconvincingly during an interview in front of her former home nine days after the disaster, the Caribbean air still heavy with dust and grief. Earlier that day, rescuers had pulled the body of her friend, Gonzalo Marquez, from the rubble.

Then came a string of unanswerable questions: Would her friends have survived if rescuers had arrived sooner? Would things be different if the dance troupe had practiced in a different building? What if she had been with Marquez downstairs instead of fetching him water from her upstairs apartment? Why does ​she get to go to university, while he is laid to rest?

Raised amid economic collapse, mass migration and authoritarian rule, Sanz and her friends began 2026 believing the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro might finally offer a different future.
Then came ​the quakes, which the government says have so far killed over 4,000 people and injured nearly 17,000 others.

Lea más en Reuters

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