A 43-year-old security guard has been rescued alive after spending eight days buried under approximately 140 tonnes of rubble, nearly 29 feet beneath a collapsed building in Venezuela — in what rescuers are calling a miracle. According to Antigua.news, Hernán Alberto Gil Flores was on duty at the Galerías Playa Grande shopping centre in the coastal town of La Guaira when twin earthquakes struck on June 24.
Gil Flores had been stationed in a small concrete booth in the basement of the mall's adjacent parking lot when the quakes hit. Rescue teams believe the booth formed a protective shell around him, creating a vital air pocket that shielded him from almost certain death.
A specialised Costa Rican Red Cross team first detected signs of life and established contact with Gil Flores on Sunday, June 28. From that point, emergency workers from Venezuela, Costa Rica, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, Portugal and the United States toiled for more than 100 hours to free him. Rescuers used a telescopic camera to maintain constant contact with the trapped man and threaded an intravenous drip through a narrow shaft to deliver water and liquid nutrients, keeping him alive well beyond the 48-to-72-hour survival window typical in such disasters.
The operation was far from straightforward. Rescuers contended with a highly unstable structure, torrential rain and persistent aftershocks throughout the effort. Access ducts built to reach Gil Flores collapsed several times during excavation, placing both the trapped man and his rescuers in considerable danger. One Chilean firefighter described the mission as "without doubt the most complex and technically difficult" rescue he had ever undertaken.
Despite the harrowing conditions, Gil Flores reportedly remained calm and even cheerful throughout his ordeal — at one point requesting hydration drinks in specific flavours and speaking with rescuers about his family. He had asked the team not to inform his wife that he was alive, fearing he might not survive. Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado told him: "We were never going to leave him here."
Allan Madrigal, a Costa Rican Red Cross paramedic who first heard Gil Flores' faint cries, described it as "an emotional moment," recalling how he had asked a colleague to confirm he "wasn't just imagining it."
When Gil Flores finally emerged from the rubble — reportedly without so much as a crushed fingernail — rescuers broke into rapturous applause, embracing one another in a mixture of joy and relief. His wife, Gusbimar González, and mother to their two young children, said she had endured "days of great sorrow" before learning that contact had been made. "When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness," she said.
The rescue has provided a rare moment of hope amid what is being described as Venezuela's worst natural disaster in more than a century. The 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela. As of Thursday, June 2, the death toll stood at 2,595, with more than 11,000 people injured — many seriously — and tens of thousands still missing. Search teams continue to comb through the widespread destruction in the hope of finding additional survivors.
