Man Survives Eight Days Trapped Under 140-Ton Rubble
A man in Venezuela survived eight days trapped under 140 tons of rubble after devastating earthquakes in June, rescued after emergency workers heard his faint cries for help from an underground parking lot.
BBC reported on July 3 a miraculous survival story from Venezuela's devastating earthquakes on June 24, which measured 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude. Rescue workers successfully pulled out a man named Hernán Gil after he was trapped under collapsed building debris for eight days. Gil was located beneath the rubble and rescue efforts took over 100 hours from his discovery until extraction. A Chilean firefighter described the operation as the most complex and technically difficult rescue he had ever undertaken.
The confirmed death toll from the twin earthquakes has risen to at least 2,595, with around 12,500 injured and over 50,000 still missing. Allan Madrigal, an emergency medical officer with the Costa Rican Red Cross, revealed that he heard Gil's faint cries for help on Sunday, June 28, as Gil attempted to dig himself out from the rubble. Madrigal initially doubted his own ears and asked colleagues to confirm he was not imagining the sound.
Gil was working in a small concrete enclosure in the underground parking lot adjacent to the Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in Catia La Mar when the earthquakes struck. He survived because the concrete structure shielded him from approximately 140 tons of building debris that collapsed in that area. Officials noted that rescue efforts were delayed partly because access tunnels constructed by rescue workers collapsed multiple times, highlighting the dangers both rescuers and Gil faced. Despite these obstacles, rescue teams eventually located Gil and successfully extracted him from the rubble.
