Translated from the original Spanish field notes by Jesús Valdez.
After a difficult day of travel, the hotel in Caracas helped me by giving me the room key early, at 7:30 a.m. I was able to sleep for four hours before beginning my activities at noon.
I first had a meeting with Dr. Kit Miyamoto to share my initial impressions of what I was seeing in Caracas. I told him that, in general, the city did not appear devastated and that I was not seeing as many collapses as initially expected. However, the presence of numerous older mid-rise and high-rise buildings with damage to façade walls and partition walls was evident. Apparently, many of these buildings had been designed under codes that allowed higher levels of ductility, lower reinforcement ratios in concrete, and limited lateral-resisting systems for seismic actions.
Afterward, I went to the hotel lobby, where Luis and Ulises, an entrepreneur in the oil sector, were already waiting for me. Through a contact of Dr. Kit Miyamoto, they confirmed the possibility of meeting with the Secretary of Government of Miranda State, an area adjacent to Caracas where numerous damaged buildings over four stories had been reported, particularly in the municipality of Chacao.
I confirmed that, if the meeting took place at the command post installed near the affected area, transportation would not be a complication, since I had already booked my hotel in Chacao.
After eating something quickly, we went to meet with Fredy Rodríguez, Secretary of Government of Miranda State. During the meeting I gave a presentation on Miyamoto International, describing our participation after the 2017 Mexico earthquake and the work the company carries out around the world. His comment was, “Thank God He put you here at this moment.” They were very receptive to receiving initial recommendations, which allowed them to reflect on some immediate needs and on the preliminary plans they had established to respond to the disaster.
During the conversation, I detected several important gaps. They were already organizing a group of engineers for damage assessment; however, they did not have protocols for managing and using the information generated, nor did they have a validated and tested assessment methodology.
They had not established a deployment strategy or identified the tools needed to carry out the assessments. At that point, I shared some of the mistakes we made as a city in Mexico in 2017 and how Miyamoto supported the later stages of the disaster response. They showed great interest in learning from those experiences.
At the end of the meeting, they asked me to prioritize the damage assessment of a government structure that had been adapted to function as a school and currently serves approximately 5,000 students.
As a demonstration, I explained the damage assessment process through an exterior walkaround, access to the interior, and identification of the structural system and level of damage. As a result, I determined that the structure showed instability conditions, so I recommended restricting access and classifying it with yellow structural marking.
Later, a federal government deputy accompanied me and facilitated our access to the disaster zone in Chacao. During a street-level walk, I began performing visual assessments from the exterior at the level of structural triage, identifying buildings that required detailed inspections because of uncertainties about their resisting systems. Others showed severe visible damage from the exterior and potential collapse risk, while some showed only limited damage.
It is important to note that, in general, approximately 70 percent of the buildings showed some level of damage, mainly in nonstructural elements such as infill walls, façades, finishes, and partition walls. Potentially risky structures could represent around 5 percent of the total observed during this initial city walkthrough.
Caracas recorded ten collapsed buildings and hundreds, or even thousands, with some level of repairable or limited damage. However, reports indicated that the true disaster was in La Guaira, in La Guaira State, formerly Vargas State.
After several structural triage assessments, we arrived at the Petunia building, located in Los Palos Grandes. It was a 16-story building that collapsed in pancake form, with lateral displacement toward the street, affecting occupants, pedestrians, and numerous vehicles that were crushed during the collapse.
After passing through the military checkpoint, I was able to enter the collapse zone. I asked to go onto the upper part of the debris, and the army general in charge authorized my access. There I met engineer Estephanía and Lorenzo, civil engineers from the construction company Saad, who were carrying out engineering work to support the rescue groups.
I was especially impressed by the work of the volunteer rescuers, who were doing extraordinary work without pay and with very limited material resources for structural monitoring. The risk to the adjacent building was significant because of the force exerted by the debris.
I spoke for several minutes with engineer Estephanía, giving her recommendations about various technical situations she was facing. She is a fantastic person who donated her time and knowledge to rescue her people. She was interested in confirming whether the decisions being made were appropriate and whether additional actions should be implemented. I shared my opinion about cutting and lifting maneuvers, as well as monitoring of the adjacent structure that remained standing.
We exchanged phone numbers and agreed that I would try, through the deputy facilitating our access through the military checkpoints, to obtain laser monitoring equipment and alert systems, or, if that was not possible, support from a surveyor with laser measuring equipment.
When I came down from the debris, I went to look for water and experienced the Caribbean warmth of the people of Chacao, who constantly thanked those helping and making the effort to come to the site. As in Mexico, the community had set up tents with food, drinks, and all kinds of support for the rescue teams.
I ended the day by assessing a building approximately five years old that had significant cracking in its lower levels. My interest was to analyze the behavior of a structure that, in theory, should have been designed according to relatively recent seismic codes.
I observed that the building had experienced significant distortions in those levels, greater than I would expect under an updated seismic code. I was directly observing the differences between the seismic-resistant behavior of a building designed under Mexican regulations and one designed under Venezuelan regulations.
The owner’s family also expressed their gratitude, and I was finally able to leave to rest, since a complex day awaited me. I planned to travel to La Guaira, where reports indicated generalized damage in practically all buildings.
At last, I would be able to sleep a few more hours.
