AI Summary
5 min readA week after two earthquakes struck Venezuela—the largest the country had seen in a century—volunteers in the state of La Guaira were still calling for silence over the rubble, hoping to hear cries from survivors. A three-year-old boy was pulled out alive. But the death toll was nearing 2,000, with 5,000 injured and hundreds of buildings flattened. The morgue in La Guaira was overflowing. Thousands were displaced. And the disaster hit a country that, just months earlier, had seemed to be tentatively getting back on its feet.
A fragile political reset, now shattered
The hope had come from a dramatic political shift. In January, US special forces captured Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela's authoritarian president. Since then, Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro's former vice president, has been running the country in close collaboration with Washington, under the watchful eye of Donald Trump. Both sides sold the arrangement as mutually beneficial. America eased sanctions on Venezuela and on Rodríguez herself. In return, Rodríguez maintained stability, reformed rules that had deterred foreign investment in oil and mining, and released a number of political prisoners. Donald Trump portrayed the arrangement as a strategic success, claiming Venezuela was "doing better right now than they've ever done in the history of their country." That narrative, already overstated, is now being severely teste
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:44) **Earthquake Strikes Venezuela** - A week after two earthquakes, the largest in a century, the death toll nears 2,000 and public anger at the government's response is growing.
- 2 (03:27) **Scale of the Disaster** - The damage is huge: 5,000 injured, hundreds of buildings flattened, and critical infrastructure like health centers seriously damaged.
- 3 (03:57) **The Pre-Earthquake Political Context** - Before the quake, there was hope Venezuela was stabilizing under Delcy Rodriguez after Nicolas Maduro's capture, with US sanctions eased in return for stability and reform.
- 4 (05:11) **Government Response Failures** - Venezuelans report being left on their own in the critical first 48 hours, with only volunteer help and a slow, inadequate government response.
- 5 (06:35) **The US Response and Tensions** - The US response has been "strange," with Trump praising the situation while dispatching some aid, but not a full-scale reconstruction effort.
- 6 (08:07) **Earthquake's Impact on US Political Plans** - The US plan for Venezuela was stabilization, recovery, and transition to elections. The earthquake could be used to delay the transition, benefiting the unpopular Rodriguez regime.
- 7 (09:58) **Growing Anger and Political Risk for the Regime** - While Trump backs Rodriguez, the disaster brings real risks as public anger grows over the failed response.
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Show Notes
Government help was thin on the ground just after the country’s worst quakes in a century. The America-backed regime is thus on literal and figurative shaky ground. A food-delivery robot trial in England represents the future of the service. And why Harlan Coben’s proliferating thrillers are cheesy but gripping.
Guests and host:
- Kinley Salmon, Latin America correspondent
- Alex Hern, AI writer
- Catherine Nixey, culture correspondent
- Jason Palmer, co-host of “The Intelligence”
Topics covered:
- Venezuela earthquakes, disaster response
- delivery robots
- Harlan Coben
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