A 12-year-old girl in Venezuela has been rescued after being trapped for 32 hours under the rubble of her collapsed apartment building following a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. Fabiana, who was in her home in Caraballeda, northern La Guaira state, was in the kitchen holding onto the counter when the second, stronger of two powerful earthquakes struck on June 24.
"I saw things shaking, falling, breaking, and then the walls cracked. The wall separating my apartment from a friend's collapsed. At that moment, I thought, 'I'm going to die. I won't survive this. No-one is going to rescue me,'" Fabiana recounted.
Her mother, Karina Blanco, had been teaching a spinning class when the tremors began. She rushed home to find her 10-story building had partially collapsed, leaving a gap where her apartment had been. Blanco initially believed her daughter was dead, seeing half of Fabiana's bed protruding from the debris.
Fabiana described a period of silence after the walls fell, leaving her pinned with the ceiling close to her face. Despite her usual anxiety and claustrophobia, she found a sense of calm, which she attributed to shock. Her survival was aided when a nurse, who lived in the upstairs neighbors' apartment, began calling out for survivors after her own rescue. Fabiana responded, and the nurse informed volunteers about her presence.
"I had surrendered to God asking for strength to begin a new life without Fabiana. And then someone told me, 'Your daughter is alive'," Karina said, recalling the moment she learned her daughter was alive. She then called out to her daughter into the gaps of the debris.
During her time trapped, Fabiana managed to eat ketchup and cheese, which she found. She was eventually rescued and reunited with her mother. The twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela were among the strongest tremors to hit the country in a century, causing widespread damage.