Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Wood­en pal­lets for mat­tress­es, med­ical sup­plies, wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion plants, heavy ma­chin­ery to search through rub­ble and body bags are among the lat­est ur­gent re­quests from Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties as the hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis deep­ens in the wake of last Wednes­day’s dev­as­tat­ing twin earth­quakes.

The rare 7.2 and 7.5 mag­ni­tude earth­quakes shat­tered north­west­ern Venezuela, com­pound­ing the cri­sis in the al­ready em­bat­tled coun­try.

Since then, 609 af­ter­shocks have rat­tled the re­gion, with a strong 4.6 mag­ni­tude tremor yes­ter­day trig­ger­ing fresh fear among sur­vivors.

So far, the death toll has risen to more than 1,700, with over 50,000 peo­ple still miss­ing, thou­sands in­jured and dis­placed, and at least 2,500 build­ings af­fect­ed.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s query on when Trinidad and To­ba­go’s do­na­tions would be sent.

Oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said dis­cus­sions with Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties are con­tin­u­ing to work out lo­gis­tics, and they ex­pect sup­plies could be dis­patched “soon.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties said one of the lat­est ur­gent re­quire­ments is wood­en pal­lets on which dis­placed sur­vivors can lay mat­tress­es.

At least 16,000 peo­ple are home­less, with many sleep­ing in the streets and oth­er open ar­eas.

Over the week­end, au­thor­i­ties al­so con­firmed the need for body bags as the death toll con­tin­ues to climb.

Busi­ness­es and unions mo­bilise

The Star­lite Group’s Hu­man­i­ty Foun­da­tion has been pack­ing sup­plies do­nat­ed by T&T’s Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty and the wider pub­lic for ship­ment by boat.

Star­lite Group man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ger­ald Aboud said, “Now is a time to lift up oth­ers, not judge by one thing, break down or paint every­one with one brush. The Venezue­lan com­mu­ni­ty plays a piv­otal role in so­ci­ety and is cru­cial to our econ­o­my. In this world, all we are is one un­der God. We must act re­spon­si­bly to each oth­er.”

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said, “In as­sist­ing the re­lief ef­fort for our neigh­bour, busi­ness­es have been giv­ing gen­er­ous­ly, in­clud­ing 400 mat­tress­es with sheet sets, plus dry goods and oth­er non-per­ish­ables be­ing sourced for im­me­di­ate ship­ment.

“We’re in touch with the diplo­mat­ic mis­sions to en­sure items reach vic­tims. Fur­ther ship­ments will fol­low as our col­lec­tion dri­ve con­tin­ues. Col­lec­tion cen­tres are RRM Plaza, 51 High Street, San Fer­nan­do, and all SNS Su­per­mar­kets.”

Steel Work­ers Union of T&T (SWUTT) pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Bai­ley said as­sis­tance to Venezuela will be among the dis­cus­sion items at to­day’s meet­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 13 unions.

“All unions—JTUM, NATUC and oth­ers—should be in­volved in the as­sis­tance,” Bai­ley added.

SWW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al Michael An­nisette said, “SWW­TU’s ex­ec­u­tive meets on Tues­day (to­day), where we’ll dis­cuss our call for work­ers to use the for­mu­la we did dur­ing COVID: con­vert some over­time to cash to as­sist Venezuela.”

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said the list of es­sen­tial items was cir­cu­lat­ed to mem­bers on Sat­ur­day and the Cham­ber is now con­tact­ing busi­ness­es.

The T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion con­firmed it is work­ing to have the first ship­ment of es­sen­tial sup­plies sent by air and sea this week.

The TTMA is al­so li­ais­ing with Venezue­lan busi­ness groups.

The Cou­va Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce is co­or­di­nat­ing with non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, while the Greater Tu­na­puna Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce is con­sult­ing its mem­bers.

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers pres­i­dent Vivek Char­ran said, “Our hearts and prayers go out to Venezuela. Many Venezue­lans work with us. Our mem­bers will try to help as they can, but small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es are in ‘Sur­vival Mode’—many won’t have the fi­nances to as­sist as they’re al­ready strug­gling to pay banks, bills and staff.”

VENEZUELA’S UR­GENT SUP­PLY RE­QUESTS

Med­ical & Lo­gis­ti­cal Sup­port

• Med­ical sup­plies

• Pow­er plants/gen­er­a­tors

• Wa­ter pu­rifi­ca­tion plants

• Safe ac­com­mo­da­tion

• Self-pow­ered light­ing equip­ment

• Wood­en pal­lets for mat­tress­es

• Body bags

Con­struc­tion & Struc­tur­al Eval­u­a­tion

• Ham­mers and de­mo­li­tion ham­mers

• Elec­tric/cord­less drills

• Pow­er saws and chain­saws

• Con­crete and met­al cut­ters

• Portable elec­tric gen­er­a­tors

• Air com­pres­sors

• Ex­ten­sion lad­ders

• Mod­u­lar scaf­fold­ing

• Hy­draulic jacks

• Weld­ing equip­ment

• Bilge pumps for wa­ter ex­trac­tion

Hand Tools

• Pick­ax­es

• Shov­els

• Ma­chetes

• Crow­bars

• Shears and cold chis­els

• Ad­justable wrench­es and tool sets

• Tape mea­sures

• Lev­els

• Wheel­bar­rows

• Ropes and slings

Dam­age As­sess­ment Equip­ment

• Drones for aer­i­al in­spec­tion

• Ther­mal imag­ing cam­eras

• Struc­tur­al scan­ners and re­bar de­tec­tors

• Laser dis­tance me­ters

• Topo­graph­i­cal equip­ment (GPS, to­tal sta­tions)

• Equip­ment for mon­i­tor­ing cracks and dis­place­ments

Tem­po­rary Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Ma­te­ri­als

• Wa­ter­proof tar­pau­lins

• Zinc or alu­mini­um sheets

• Struc­tur­al tim­ber

• Tele­scop­ic met­al shores

• Sand­bags

• Nails, screws and bolts

• Steel ca­bles

• Wire mesh

Heavy Ma­chin­ery

• Back­hoes

• Ex­ca­va­tors

• Front load­ers

• Cranes

• Dump trucks

• Skid-steer load­ers (Bob­cat type)

Aid De­liv­ery

Aid is be­ing re­ceived via flights through Va­len­cia or Mai­quetía air­ports.