The main port area in La Guaira, Venezuela, has been turned into a temporary morgue as authorities struggle to process the dead from the powerful earthquakes that struck the country last week.
International media reported that the facility, normally used for port operations, has become a holding area for bodies recovered from collapsed buildings in the coastal state north of Caracas. Empty coffins were seen stacked at the site, while bodies placed in bags awaited identification and release to families.
The scene has become one of the clearest signs of the scale of the disaster, as families move between hospitals, shelters, morgues in La Guaira and Caracas, and the port facility in search of missing relatives.
El País reported that relatives have been reviewing records and images of unidentified bodies, with some remains already difficult to recognize because of the condition in which they were recovered from the rubble.
The earthquakes struck Venezuela on June 24, causing widespread destruction in La Guaira and parts of Caracas. Reuters reported that the government has confirmed at least 1,943 deaths, while thousands were injured and about 16,000 people were left homeless. A website promoted by the country’s political opposition has listed around 43,000 people as missing.
The United Nations is also moving to procure 10,000 body bags for the emergency response, a sign that officials expect the number of recovered victims to continue rising.
Rescue teams continue to search through collapsed buildings, but hopes of finding survivors have faded in several areas days after the critical 72-hour survival window passed.
In La Guaira, the port has become a place of grief, waiting, and identification. For many families, the search is no longer only through the rubble, but through body records, morgue lists, and temporary holding areas set up to handle a disaster that has overwhelmed normal systems.
The use of the port as a makeshift morgue also reflects the pressure on Venezuela’s emergency infrastructure. Reuters earlier reported that La Guaira port had been shut down after the quakes and that officials planned to use it as an emergency operations center.
For relatives still looking for loved ones, the port has become a painful stop in a wider search across the disaster zone — a place where the country’s rising toll is counted not only in official numbers, but in coffins, body bags, and names still missing.