By Bárbara Agelvis Maza
Caracas, Jul 18 (EFE).- Every morning, Betzi Gutiérrez puts on her yellow safety vest, white hard hat, and work boots to inspect buildings damaged by the devastating twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela last month.
Yet each inspection is also a reminder that she, too, lost her home when the ground shook on that day.
Like Gutiérrez, hundreds of civil and mechanical engineers, architects, structural specialists, construction managers, electricians, gas engineers, firefighters, civil protection officials, and engineering students have set aside their own lives to volunteer in teams assessing damage across the country.
Working alongside the Venezuelan College of Engineers (CIV) and the Presidential Commission for Habitability and Housing, the volunteers are mapping the destruction left by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.
Based on satellite imagery, NASA estimates that about 58,870 buildings may have been damaged or destroyed in the affected region.
«It is a way of giving back to my country through my profession, to help rebuild my beloved La Guaira,» Gutiérrez told EFE.
She lived in the coastal town of Macuto, in La Guaira state, the region hardest hit by the earthquakes, which claimed more than 5,000 lives.
Gutiérrez was on vacation with her husband and two children when disaster struck. They returned home to find found the house where they had built their lives over the previous 16 years reduced to rubble.
«It was a very hard and very sad week because I not only lost my home, I also lost close friends whom I considered family,» she recalled.
«After something like this, you are never the same. You are broken. But even though I am broken, my motivation is to help others.»
While staying with a friend in La Guaira and seeking support through a GoFundMe campaign, Gutiérrez continues volunteering with inspection teams in neighboring Caracas.
Volunteer brigades
Walking through the streets of San Bernardino, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the earthquakes, volunteers are frequently stopped by residents.
Some ask when their homes will be inspected, while others point out buildings they fear may be unsafe.
Inspectors classify buildings using a color-coded system: green indicates a building is habitable, yellow signals moderate damage requiring caution, and red identifies structures considered unsafe because of severe damage.
The assessments are carried out through a mobile application developed by the engineering college in collaboration with Venezuelan professionals abroad and local universities.
Licensed engineers complete a technical questionnaire based on their on-site observations.
More than 200 brigades have been trained to assess not only structural integrity but also gas systems, water supplies, electrical installations, and elevators, engineer Claudio Tranquillini, who leads one of the inspection teams, told EFE.
Inside the inspections
«First, we identify the building assigned to our team and inspect the façade. If there are no immediate external risks, we enter the building and begin looking for the most critical floor,» Tranquillini said.
Inspectors then move floor by floor and apartment by apartment, examining columns, beams, walls, and damaged areas.
They measure cracks, remove loose material that could fall, and determine whether structural elements have shifted or reinforcing steel has bent-signs that may indicate a serious risk of collapse.
Since July 8, between 300 and 400 inspections have been carried out each day in Caracas, excluding Chacao municipality, where local authorities have independently classified 157 buildings as yellow and 31 as red.
The college is working to expand the volunteer brigades through additional training while continuing inspections in La Guaira, where Gutiérrez hopes to return soon to help assess the homes that remain standing.
Once completed, the inspection data and the structural damage map will be made publicly available. EFE
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