Venezuela has been devastated by two powerful earthquakes that struck in rapid succession — a sight the country has never witnessed in its entire history. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the ground first shook at a magnitude of 7.1, and then, within just 39 seconds, an even stronger 7.5 magnitude quake struck the same region. Scientists are calling this phenomenon an “earthquake doublet” — two major quakes of near-equal intensity occurring in virtually the same location within an extraordinarily short span of time. The epicenters were recorded at shallow depths near Morón, west of the capital Caracas, which dramatically amplified the destruction.
The twin quakes brought hundreds of multi-story buildings and residential structures crashing down within seconds across Caracas and several other cities. The combination of quake intensity, population density, and questionable building quality has made the scale of destruction almost unimaginable. The USGS has released a preliminary damage estimate warning that anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000 people may have lost their lives — a figure that underscores the staggering magnitude of this disaster. Collapsed power lines, cracked roads, and a complete breakdown in communications are severely hampering rescue and relief operations. Against this backdrop, Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez has declared a national state of emergency. This is the worst disaster to strike Venezuela in a century. While a magnitude 7.7 quake hit the country in 1900, and a 7.3 struck in 2018, the destruction and death toll from the current catastrophe are on an incomparably greater scale. The effects were also felt in neighboring Brazil and Colombia. Though tsunami warnings were briefly issued for Caribbean coastal areas, they were subsequently lifted as the threat did not materialize. Authorities are urging citizens to stay away from damaged structures, as nearly 20 aftershocks have continued to rattle the region since the main quakes.
A World on Edge — But No Connection Between the Quakes
At the same time Venezuela was being torn apart, earthquakes also struck California (magnitude 5.6) and Japan (magnitude 7.2), sparking widespread alarm around the world. A magnitude 3.5 tremor was additionally recorded in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pulwama region of India in the early hours of Thursday, with its epicenter located 15 km deep beneath Nepal. The simultaneous occurrence of quakes across the globe on a single day raised urgent questions — but renowned seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones of the California Institute of Technology offered a clear scientific explanation.
“These earthquakes occurred on entirely different fault systems and along different plate boundaries. The probability of one earthquake thousands of miles away triggering another is essentially zero. The fact that they all happened around the same time is simply a coincidence,” she said.