America’s premier search teams are headed to Venezuela to help find and rescue survivors among the rubble.
USA-01 and USA-02 — from Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue in Virginia and from Los Angeles — were activated within hours of the deadly quakes.
USA-01 is now waiting to fly 79 team members, 70,000 pounds of equipment and six sniffer dogs into the disaster zone.
America’s premier search teams are headed to Venezuela to help find and rescue survivors among the rubble. AP Photo/Pedro Mattey
USA-01 and USA-02 — from Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue in Virginia and from Los Angeles — were activated within hours of the deadly quakes. Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue / InstagramThe elite crew, which mainly consists of firefighters but also deploys medics, engineers and dog handlers, has previously carried out missions in deadly natural disasters including the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the Japanese tsunami of 2011.
Both rescue teams carried out a training exercise just last month in Virginia to prepare for a large scale earthquake.
“The State Department are working on all options to get us there the fastest, so we’ll be out the door as soon as we possibly can,” public information officer John Morrison told The Post.
Rescue workers searching through rubble at a building destroyed by the earthquakes in Caracas. ZUMAPRESS.com
The devastating earthquakes that hit Venezuela have killed at least 188 people and destroyed numerous infrastructures. REUTERS“We specialize in reaching deeply entombed victims in collapsed reinforced concrete buildings that nobody else can get to.
“This kind of situation is exactly what we train for – we just had an exercise about a month ago with LA coming over to Fairfax County and for five days we prepared for a large scale earthquake in a dense urban core.
“So we’re ready.”
The announcement comes as the US military’s SOUTHCOM announced it is also mobilizing resources to help with earthquake response in the South American country – whose infrastructure has been decimated by decades of socialist rule.
A car crushed by the roof of a building and other debris in Catia La Mar, Venezuela. AFP via Getty Images
A Venezuelan woman next to the remains of a building destroyed by the quakes in La Guaira. AP Photo/Pedro MatteySOUTHCOM is responsible for operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Department of War — led by Pete Hegseth — would play a “big logistical role” in the response to the crisis.
Rubio told reporters during a visit to Bahrein that, although there was no specific dollar amount for the amount of aid the U.S. will be sending, President Trump has made “a full commitment to being supportive of Venezuela.”
“We have a whole-of-government response,” Rubio said. “It’ll be big. It’ll be fast and it’ll be effective.”
Relations between the two countries dramatically changed in January when elite Delta Force commandos carried out a high-stakes raid in Caracas to capture then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
Maduro has been in US custody since then awaiting trial on federal charges including narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.
President Trump said following the Caracas operation that the US would effectively run Venezuela until a “proper transition can take place”.
Acting Venezuelan president Delcy Rodriguez, who previously served as Maduro’s vice president, thanked Trump for his support following the earthquakes.
“We thank U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, who have been in constant contact with Venezuelan authorities, offering support and solidarity to the people of Venezuela in the face of this tragedy that has plunged us into mourning,” Rodriguez wrote in English in a post on X.
“Venezuela will never forget the helping hand extended to our people during these difficult times.”
