Families in Venezuela and abroad are using social media and online platforms to search for relatives missing after two powerful earthquakes struck the country Wednesday evening. The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude tremors caused widespread damage and are among the strongest to hit Venezuela in over a century.
As of late Thursday, Health Minister Carlos Alvarado reported approximately 235 deaths and at least 4,300 injuries, with casualty numbers expected to rise. With communication networks compromised, independent online registries have documented up to 40,000 missing individuals, significantly exceeding the official government figures.
Many are creating digital flyers with photos and details of their missing loved ones, posting them on platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and X. Vanesa Marcano, who lives in Madrid, posted images of her uncle and aunt, who reside in La Guaira state, a region heavily impacted by the quakes. Her uncle's daughter and her 7-year-old grandson, who were visiting from the United States, are also unaccounted for.
Jhoyser Concalves, from the coastal city of Catia La Mar, last spoke to his partner and her daughter minutes before the shaking began. He described finding only debris where their sixth-floor apartment building once stood. He has posted a "MISSING" flyer on X and Facebook, holding onto hope that they might still be alive.
The search efforts have been complicated by existing government restrictions on social media and messaging platforms. In August 2024, then-President Nicolás Maduro blocked sites like X and Signal to suppress communication following his disputed presidential election victory. Former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who became acting president in January after Maduro was removed from power, has not yet provided a comprehensive government response to the communication blockade. Following a Thursday statement from the U.N. human rights mission in Venezuela urging the government to lift these restrictions, access to X was restored for users within the country.
For the estimated 8 million Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years, these online platforms have become even more vital for checking on family members back home. Elibel Tovar Lanas, living in Chile, has not heard from his 70-year-old father, Félix Ramón Tovar Hernández, who was in La Guaira for business. Lanas registered his father on a website for the missing and expressed feelings of powerlessness due to the difficulty of obtaining information from abroad.