Historic Earthquakes

Near the Coast of Venezuela
1967 July 29 UTC
Magnitude 6.5

This earthquake centered near the coast about 30 miles west of Caracas. When the earth stopped shaking, about 240 inhabitants were dead and hundreds injured and buried in the rubble where homes and offices once stood. Over $100 million property damage was incurred in the Caracas area and about 80,000 persons were left homeless.

Damage was extensive in the Altamira and Los Palos Grandes sections of Caracas where four major apartment buildings, 10 to 12 stories high, collapsed. Many additional structures were severely damaged and several will have to be razed and reconstructed.

Huge sections of walls fell from buildings, flattening cars below and leaving large portions of structures exposed. Rescue workers used cranes and bulldozers to search through the rubble for survivors or victims of the earthquake. A week after the shock, rescue operations continued for persons believed trapped beneath the floors of the coast resort hotel, Mansion Charaima.

Maracay, about 50 miles west of Caracas, reported five deaths and 100 injuries. Several additional towns reported structural damage.

Abridged from Earthquake Information Bulletin, Volume 1, Number 7, September 1967.