Miyamoto International engineers are working alongside Venezuelan colleagues to help families return home and communities recover following the June 2026 earthquake sequence in La Guaira and the Litoral Central.
Following the earthquakes that struck La Guaira and the Litoral Central in June 2026, Miyamoto International has been on the ground in Venezuela, providing structural engineering and disaster recovery support. This week, Dr. Kit Miyamoto, CEO and Lead Structural Engineer of Miyamoto International, joined local Venezuelan engineers in Caracas to assess damaged buildings, evaluate historic structures, and lay the groundwork for a recovery led by Venezuelan expertise.
Assessing damaged churches in Caracas
Much of the week’s work centered on the city’s historic churches, structures that carry deep cultural and community significance and that were among the buildings damaged in the recent seismic activity.
At the Church of Nuestra Señora de Las Mercedes, the Miyamoto team was joined by John M. Barrett, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Venezuela, and by the Archbishop of Caracas, Monsignor Raúl Biord Castillo, during the structural assessment.
The team then turned to the Church of San José de Cotiza, a historic Catholic church of more than 135 years in the Archdiocese of Caracas. The building sustained serious damage in the recent seismic activity, and the assessment focused on understanding the extent of that damage and what will be needed to protect the structure going forward.
These assessments are a first step in a larger effort. Miyamoto’s teams are helping Venezuelan families return to safe homes and supporting communities as they rebuild after the June earthquakes.
Partnering with the Central University of Venezuela
Recovery does not end with individual assessments. It depends on building lasting local capacity, and that was the focus of the team’s visit to the Institute of Materials and Structural Models (IMME), a unit of the Faculty of Engineering at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV).
The IMME is dedicated to applied research, materials quality control, and structural analysis. Walking through the institute, Dr. Miyamoto and the team met with professors, deans, and staff to explore how to collaborate on housing and community recovery studies, knowledge transfer, and bringing the university into the assessment and reconstruction process.
Recovery is strongest when it is built on local knowledge. Partnering with UCV means Venezuelan engineers and researchers are at the center of the assessment and reconstruction work ahead, helping ensure that the expertise developed during this response continues to serve the country long after the immediate recovery.
Looking ahead
The work in Caracas reflects a broader commitment: helping families in Venezuela return to safe homes and helping communities recover, while strengthening the local institutions that will carry that recovery forward.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by Miyamoto International.
