A Turkish businessman living in Venezuela has said he rescued 38 people from collapsed buildings after first ensuring the safety of his own family during the powerful twin earthquakes that struck the country.
İbrahim Eser, who has lived in Venezuela for 22 years and serves as a representative of the Turkish World Business Council (DTİK), recalled the chaos triggered by the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that hit just 39 seconds apart, devastating the coastal city of La Guaira.
Speaking to Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency on July 1, Eser said he was in his office when the shaking began.
“Refrigerators and cabinets started toppling toward me. My first thought was my wife and children, whose home was just behind one of the buildings that later collapsed,” he said.
Running toward his apartment, Eser witnessed furniture, televisions and even people falling from buildings as panic spread across the city.
After finding his wife and children and moving them to a safe location, he immediately returned to the disaster zone instead of leaving the area.
“When I turned around, I saw that this building and the one next to it had completely collapsed. People were screaming from everywhere. The injured were lying in the streets while others were trapped beneath the rubble. I started pulling survivors out with my own hands,” he said.
“That night, I rescued 38 people from the debris and carried them to safety.”
Eser also described spending more than an hour trying to save a man named Santiago whose voice he could hear beneath the wreckage, but said the lack of heavy equipment made it impossible to break through the concrete and collapsed columns in time.
He later helped evacuate a crew from Turkish Airlines (THY), whose hotel was located near the disaster zone.
Thanking the Turkish emergency teams deployed to Venezuela, Eser praised the efforts of the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), the Turkish Armed Forces, the National Medical Rescue Team and the Turkish Red Crescent.
“Seeing the destruction on television is one thing, but witnessing it firsthand is entirely different,” he said. “Only when you are here do you truly understand the scale of the disaster.”
