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Mum rescued from Venezuela rubble with newborn baby

Death toll nears 1,500


June 30, 2026 00:00:00


CARACAS, June 29 (Agencies): A mother who was pulled from the rubble of her wrecked home in Venezuela with her 18-day-old baby has told the BBC of how her son helped keep her alive.

Dayana Patino said her son Juan David gave her "motivation to be awake and alert".

"As long as he was alive, I was going to be alive. Every now and then I was touching his nose for proof that he was still breathing," she said. Footage of the rescue has been shared around the world, with Juan David becoming a symbol of hope in Venezuela, which has been devastated by the twin earthquakes that hit the country on Wednesday - killing at least 1,450 people.

Search efforts are continuing, but hopes are diminishing that more survivors will be found.

Rescue teams raced on Sunday to find more survivors of the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela this week, with signs of life bringing occasional relief to a grim quest to whittle down a list of tens of thousands missing. The death toll from Wednesday's twin earthquakes neared 1,500 people as foreign rescue teams poured into La Guaira, the hardest-hit state of a country long mired in a deep political and economic crisis.


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