“You all – firefighters, paramedics, cynologists, logistics specialists – deserve the highest respect. Your rescue operations, provided medical and humanitarian aid, and the established mobile field hospital are an excellent example of human solidarity and compassion,” G. Nausėda told the officers of the State Fire and Rescue Service, Emergency Medical Service, and State Border Guard Service who worked on the mission.
“I am proud that Lithuania could contribute to international efforts in distant Venezuela. Yesterday you helped in Venezuela, tomorrow such help might be needed by us in Lithuania. Such missions strengthen our own preparedness and ability to respond to complex emergency situations,” he emphasized.
BNS announced that two Search and Rescue and Lithuanian Mobile Emergency Medical Aid teams had departed for the mission. Rescuers carried out search and rescue operations for people in destroyed areas, and the mobile emergency medical aid team provided medical assistance for 12 days in the La Guaira region, where they set up a field hospital.
Assistance was provided to about 230 patients there. Lithuanian specialists also contributed to the organization of humanitarian aid, cooperated with German medics, and built temporary shelters for displaced residents.
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The rescue team worked at eight sites in Venezuela and recovered seven bodies from the rubble. As team leader Gediminas Šukšta stated, the most challenging conditions of the mission were constant heat and completely collapsed buildings, where the probability of finding live people was extremely low.
On June 24, earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 shook Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira, leveling entire blocks of multi-story residential buildings.
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The official death toll reached 5.2 thousand people.
