Seismic wake-up call: Venezuela’s quake reveals unsafe construction on soft ground
Two back-to-back earthquakes devastated Venezuela, killing more than 1,400 and injuring thousands, as engineers warned for years that tall concrete buildings on soft ground with weak seismic reinforcement and lax oversight could collapse; the disaster highlights outdated codes, poor construction practices, and insufficient retrofit efforts across cities like La Guaira and Caracas.