A three-year-old boy has been pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building in Venezuela’s La Guaira state, six days after a pair of powerful earthquakes struck the country. The rescue, carried out by a Jordanian civil defence team, was confirmed by Venezuelan interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who described the child, named Klieber Morán, as a “source of hope for our people.”

The child was extracted from the Los Corales Garden 1 building, according to local officials, and given first aid before being transferred to a hospital in the capital, Caracas. Medical sources reported his vital signs as good. National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, in a televised address, said the rescue demonstrated that hope remained of finding further survivors, even though the critical 72-hour window for survival under debris had passed days earlier.

The earthquakes, of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, struck within seconds of each other on 25 June, devastating coastal areas. The official death toll stands at 1,943, with more than 10,000 injured, according to Venezuelan authorities. Tens of thousands remain unaccounted for. Satellite data analysed by NASA indicates that approximately 58,870 buildings were damaged or destroyed, though a civilian tracking website cited by international media puts the number of missing at over 46,000, a figure the government has not confirmed.

In La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit areas, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reports widespread food shortages, a collapse of basic services, and largely severed communications. “Community tensions are rising as access to assistance remains constrained,” the agency said. The World Health Organization warns that health services are under “extreme pressure,” with an increased risk of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria due to low vaccination coverage. A 47-tonne UN aid shipment arrived on Tuesday, including emergency health kits and supplies for safe births and disease prevention.

International rescue teams from the United States, Mexico, and dozens of other countries continue to search for survivors with trained dogs and heavy equipment. Local residents in many areas have also been digging by hand. The rescue of the boy is the only survivor reported found on the sixth day, though earlier rescues included a 21-year-old man pulled out after 106 hours and a father and son freed after four days. The situation remains fluid, with authorities cautioning that the toll may rise as recovery operations proceed.