Nine months weren't enough: What the Twin Towers teach about the Venezuelan tragedy

Published at: 09/07/2026 08:28 AM

It has to be said crudely: when a building falls on hundreds or thousands of people, an orderly row of bodies does not appear waiting to be delivered. Ruins, dust, fire, broken concrete, trapped bodies, mixed wreckage appear and families asking for names that no one can confirm yet.

That happened in the Twin Towers. In the United States, after September 11, 2001, the formal rescue, recovery and removal operation at Ground Zero ended on May 30, 2002. In other words, it was NINE MONTHS of continuous work among rubble, twisted steel and human remains. The ABC7 network in New York reported that during those nine months rescue, recovery and support teams worked there after the attacks. (ABC7 New York)

And yet, so many bodies could not be fully recovered. The AP agency reported that, when the towers collapsed, few entire bodies were recovered and that forensics had to work with more than 21,900 human remains, some examined over and over again with new DNA technologies. (AP News)

The hardest fact is this: almost 40% of the victims of the World Trade Center still had no remains identified more than two decades later. AP reported in 2025 that, although new DNA identification had been achieved almost 24 years later, about 40% of the victims still had no identified remains. (AP News)

This means that not even a country with highly developed forensic institutions could quickly close a tragedy of that magnitude. It wasn't a lack of technology or a lack of staff. It was the brutal reality of a massive collapse.

Now let's take that comparison to Venezuela. The recent double earthquake didn't destroy just two towers at a single point. In Venezuela, hundreds of structures fell, collapsed or were seriously damaged: the figures reported by AP speak of 190 collapsed buildings and 856 damaged structures, in addition to thousands of deaths, injuries and homeless people. (AP News) Reuters also reported that the tragedy had already left 3,811 dead, 16,740 injured and 17,907 homeless. (Reuters)

That's why we have to be serious. Venezuela is not facing a localized tragedy, but rather a widespread emergency, with hundreds of buildings fallen or compromised, entire communities affected, families displaced, broken services and rescue teams working in unstable areas.

From a fair perspective, the Venezuelan government faces an enormous task: to rescue, remove, identify, treat the injured, protect survivors and organize the response in the midst of a national tragedy. Asking for speed is legitimate; demanding miracles is irresponsible.

If in New York the removal took nine months and the identification of victims is still an open wound more than twenty years later, in Venezuela the process can be even more complex. Not because there is a lack of will, but because the territorial and human magnitude of the double earthquake is greater: they are not two towers, they are hundreds of fallen or damaged structures, thousands of broken families and an entire country trying to lift bodies, names and memories at the same time.

Mazo News Team