Venezuela Earthquakes

CORE, the Wayuu Taya Foundation, and Acceso are responding after back-to-back earthquakes struck near Caracas, Venezuela. Together, we deployed heavy debris removal equipment to aid in search and recovery and clear rubble. We’re also distributing food, water, tarps, and hygiene kits to displaced families as they navigate sudden and incalculable loss.

CORE was recently featured on How to Help lists from the Associated Press, TODAY U.S. News & World Report.

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OUR RESPONSE

CORE teams are active on the ground in Venezuela providing a comprehensive response for directly impacted communities. In coordination with our longtime partner, the Wayuu Taya Foundation, we are working in Caracas and La Guaira and close to the epicenter in Turmero and Morón.

OPERATIONS TO DATE

- - Shelter Recovery & Displacement Camp Support: Delivering durable, waterproof tarps and installing temporary shade structures at displacement camps for immediate shelter, while our shelter experts assess partially damaged homes to find ways to create safe, livable spaces families can return to.
    - Search and Recovery: Deployed heavy equipment including excavators and backhoes and trained operators to aid search and recovery efforts in Turmero and La Guaira.
    - Rubble Removal: Cleared more than 12,000 metric tons of debris from sites near the epicenter including a damaged school, partially collapsed homes and community spaces in Morón
    - Food and Hygiene Kits: Reached over 4,800 people at displacement camps in Caracas, La Guaira, and Carabobo with vital food kits, hygiene supplies, and drinking water.
    - Cash Assistance: Our Emergency Cash Team is mapping markets near displacement camps and vetting financial service providers to efficiently deliver cash to impacted families.
    - Fresh Produce: Delivering nearly 18,000 pounds of fresh produce weekly – sourced through Colombian farming enterprises via our partner Acceso – sustaining families for the next four months.
    - Surge Support: Embedded alongside local nonprofit the Wayuu Taya Foundation to train staff, run needs assessments, and manage warehousing and distributions.

“Haiti taught us that every solution starts with showing up – and that a single action can spark change. That ethos guides CORE to this day.”

– CORE

What We Know

On June 24, twin earthquakes struck northern Venezuela within seconds of each other. The tremors, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitudes, were the most powerful to hit the country in over a century. They’ve caused widespread outages, collapsed countless buildings, and left entire communities in ruins.

Nearly a month later, the human toll continues to grow. More than 5,000 people have died, with thousands more still missing. Recovery teams are stretched thin and lack the equipment and fuel needed to keep pace with the scale of destruction. Many community members have resorted to digging with household tools, desperate to find loved ones buried under the rubble.

Meanwhile, a second crisis is setting in: thousands of people have no home to return to or are afraid to return to damaged buildings, in a country where millions already lacked access to basic resources. Now, many are sleeping in tents on the street or in displacement camps, doing everything they can to keep their families safe and healthy. Families urgently need basics like food, water, medical supplies, and a safe place to stay to make it through the days and weeks ahead.

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Help Us Reach $1M

We’ve launched a $1M Venezuela Relief Campaign, and your network can help us get there. Start a fundraiser, share it with your community, and turn collective generosity into emergency relief for families who’ve lost everything. Your donation today goes directly into the hands of families in Venezuela.

Has CORE responded to
earthquakes before?

Earthquake relief and recovery work has been part of CORE’s DNA since our inception after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which caused mass casualties and widespread devastation in Port-au-Prince. We understand how, between the seemingly endless piles of rubble and the sudden and incalculable loss of everything familiar, it can be difficult to even know where to begin. Just as we did then, CORE is equipped to support communities with the resources to stabilize in the immediate aftermath and recover over the long-term.

More recently, CORE responded to the Syria-Türkiye earthquake in 2023, which similarly devastated a region already dealing with fragile health systems and economic instability. We provided communities with cash assistance, food kits, and other critical items. We later expanded our program to give financial support to businessowners who’d lost nearly everything, including their ability to provide for their families.

Workers demolish a damaged building by hand in June 2013. Many neighborhoods in Port-au-Price have narrow, tight corridors, limiting access to heavy machinery. In these areas crews demolished earthquake-damaged homes with hand tools, one floor at a time, from top to bottom. J/P HRO maintained a robust engineering department that repaired and retrofitted homes where possible and demolished them when not.

Heavy machinery demolishes an earthquake damaged structure in Haiti’s Grand Anse Department following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in August 2021. CORE launched an immediate response that provided emergency medical aid and mobilized heavy machinery to clear rubble and damaged structures.

Massive piles of rubble from a building that was destroyed in the 2023 Turkiye earthquake/

Our Partners

million people
call Syria home

million people
need humanitarian
assistance

million people
have been displaced

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OF SYRIANS LIVE
BELOW THE
POVERTY LINE

What would it take for you to return to a home that tries to break you?

For Kinan, CORE’s Syria Manager, it’s the promise of waking up every morning to have a cup of coffee with his mom.

Read his story.

Kinan is an entrepreneur. An activist. A cook. A lifelong humanitarian. A Syrian exile.  

He’s also CORE’s Syria Manager. After fleeing Syria to escape persecution, Kinan spent 13 years in France building a life most people could only dream of. He earned advanced degrees in international economics and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist fighting, held senior roles with international NGOs, built a network of friends and colleagues, opened a cafe, and indulged his love of art and culture.

But in October 2025, he left it all behind to reunite with his family and help shape his country’s future.

Looking back

In February 2023, catastrophic 7.8 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes caused widespread devastation across Southern Türkiye and Northern Syria. The disaster exacerbated the already dire humanitarian crisis in Syria and displaced many families rebuilding their lives in Türkiye, which hosts the largest population of Syrian refugees.

Maisun is a mother of five, a baker, and a superhero to her children. Originally from Idlib, Maisun sadly lost her husband and one of her daughters to airstrikes in Syria. After being displaced three times within her country, each time fleeing with her remaining children in search of safety, she relocated her family to Türkiye.

CORE met Maisun in Mersin, where we gave her cash assistance to purchase essentials for her family.