‘Please, someone come’: Venezuelans trapped in apartment recount terrifying ordeal

With no way out of their apartment after the earthquake, Caracas resident Martha Anez leaned out of her balcony and shouted, ‘We’re trapped! We need help! Please, someone come!’ Anez told US broadcaster CNN that two more aftershocks followed. Each lasted a minute and a half, but it felt like it would never end!
She said she couldn’t even get out. They were being hit with hammers on one side and kicked on the other. In the end, I don’t know who rescued us. All I could hear was them shouting, ‘Get out of there, we’re coming, there’s six of us!’ Then they broke down the door and entered.
Anez said the bottom three floors of her apartment building were completely destroyed. Another Caracas resident, Eric Martinez, said he was trying to build a protective wall with furniture when debris from the upper floors of his apartment building began to fall on his house.
“Everything was falling on my house from the apartments above,” he said. Another trapped man, named Martinez, had to wait about two hours to be rescued. That’s when rescuers realized he was still alive. “They realized I was alive. Then they said, ‘Talk, talk, talk.’ So I kept talking,” he said.
Venezuela is still recovering from the devastation of two powerful earthquakes in a row. So far, 32 people have been killed and 700 injured. The toll is expected to rise. Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, confirmed the casualty figures to the media.