CATIA LA MAR: Venezuela\u2019s US-backed acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez on Thursday issued a fiery defense of her government\u2019s response to last week\u2019s devastating earthquakes, lashing out at critics who say authorities reacted too slowly, pushing back on suggestions that the true death toll is far higher than the government has acknowledged and rejecting accusations that the nation\u2019s shoddily constructed social housing exacerbated the disaster.<\/p>\n
The self-described socialist government of Rodr\u00edguez, striving for legitimacy months after the United States removed former President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro from power in January, has come under fire for what residents have described as a sluggish and haphazard response to the quakes.<\/p>\n
Residents of the hardest-hit state, La Guaira, complain that the absence of a serious government search-and-rescue operation immediately after the temblors left them alone to scour for neighbors and loved ones with their bare hands. Rescuers have lamented that the country\u2019s shortages of specialized equipment slowed efforts to find survivors. Experts have noted that substandard construction of social housing projects \u2014 a hallmark of the tenure of former President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez \u2014 left many neighborhoods vulnerable to quakes.<\/p>\n
At a press conference for foreign journalists in the capital of Caracas late Thursday, Rodr\u00edguez, wearing a black ribbon as a symbol of mourning, refused to accept the criticism.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately,\u201d she said, lacing into journalists who she accused of spreading misinformation. \u201cTo politicize a humanitarian tragedy like this \u2014 when the Venezuelan government and its authorities have spared no effort, public, private, national, or international \u2014 is disgraceful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities have counted at least 2,295 people killed by the earthquake as of Wednesday \u2014 a number that\u2019s expected to rise. They did not offer an updated death toll on Thursday, and have maintained tight control over public communications and relief efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CATIA LA MAR: Venezuela\u2019s US-backed acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez on Thursday issued a fiery defense of her government\u2019s response to last week\u2019s devastating earthquakes, lashing out at critics who say authorities reacted too slowly, pushing back on suggestions that the true death toll is far higher than the government has acknowledged and rejecting accusations that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":99802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99804,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99787\/revisions\/99804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}