Venezuela's earthquake death toll passes 6,000 as the first repatriation flight from the United States lands

Deutsche Welle reports that the confirmed death toll from Venezuela's twin earthquakes has crossed 6,000, weeks after the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 events struck within about thirty seconds of one another on 24 June. More than 16,000 people were injured, and tens of thousands remain unaccounted for. In the coastal state of La Guaira, about 80 percent of buildings collapsed. The first official count in the days after the quakes was 188 dead, an indication of how slowly information moved out of the affected areas.

RIA Novosti reported that Venezuela has received its first repatriation flight from the United States since the earthquakes, resuming deportation flights that had been suspended during the emergency.

The country's oil sector sustained far less damage than its cities. S&P Global reported that production and refining were essentially unharmed, with minimal damage in the Orinoco Belt, where most of the roughly 1.2 million barrels a day of output originates. That divergence defines the economic problem. The revenue base survived while the housing stock, ports and workforce around Caracas and the coast did not, leaving reconstruction dependent on a state whose fiscal capacity was already limited before the quakes.