Residents who received apartments in La Guaira welcomed having bedrooms and bathrooms of their own. Then, on June 24, 2026, earthquakes struck. At least 14 towers fell nearly at once, trapping hundreds; more than 6,500 people died, and more than 17,000 were left homeless. The towers stood on a coastal strip near a major fault line, where scientists had warned the government about earthquake and soil risks.
Housing Built on Risky Ground
The housing decisions followed the 2010 mudslides and heavy rain, which displaced more than 100,000 people across Venezuela. In 2011, President Hugo Chávez directed the government to expand public housing for people driven from their homes by floods and mudslides. Many had been living in public schools, government buildings, military facilities and the presidential palace.
Land was scarce. That shortage led to expropriations, and Chávez encouraged Venezuelans to help the state identify abandoned lots. The government built scores of apartments between the Caribbean Sea and the mountains, including towers in Caraballeda near Caracas. Trade and watchdog organizations raised concerns about building standards, seismic-resistant design requirements and the quality of cement and steel.
The area had already suffered destructive disasters. A magnitude-6.6 earthquake in 1967 damaged buildings in Caraballeda and Caracas, prompting quake-resistant construction guidelines and the creation of the Venezuelan Foundation for Seismological Research. Floods and mudslides in 1999 killed tens of thousands.
After the 1999 disaster, engineer and then-science minister Carlos Genatios led a reconstruction plan with local and international experts. Its hazard-mitigation program set coastal land-use restrictions, primarily to reduce flood risks and, to a lesser extent, earthquake risks. Genatios said scientists warned officials that the history of floods and mudslides also increased earthquake dangers: buildings would stand on loose, rocky soil deposited over centuries. The San Sebastian Fault runs offshore and beneath La Guaira state.
What the Records Don't Show
The Caraballeda towers belonged to the Great Housing Mission Venezuela program. A government newsletter captioned a photograph of one tower as a building that “proudly stands as a symbol of revolutionary justice.” At least 13 of the 43 towers built in La Guaira state collapsed in the June earthquakes; all but four stood in Caraballeda.
Residents gained housing, but reports also described failures in basic services. They faced almost no potable water, broken elevators and trash chutes that drew rats and cockroaches. Experts said towers between 10 and 20 floors could sway at the same rate as seismic waves, a phenomenon called resonance. That could increase pressure on columns and raise the likelihood of damage and collapse.
No one knows whether contractors complied with building codes or whether officials conducted soil studies before construction—or ignored them. The government hadn't released blueprints, soil studies, inspection records or the “descriptive memorandum,” which should contain engineering and architectural specifications.
Francisco “Farruco” Sesto, who headed the office responsible for Chávez’s housing mission, didn't respond to an AP interview request. Less than two weeks after the earthquakes, he told a government-affiliated influencer that land selected for public housing had undergone soil studies, but offered no proof. He called criticism an “insidious, malicious campaign” against the housing mission and said the private sector built most state housing. “The state acts as the great organizer — the great planner, if you will … Who performs these soil studies? Primarily, specialized private companies,” Sesto said.
Residents pointed to Styrofoam in the rubble as evidence, in their view, that the government used substandard materials to cut costs. They also cited documented corruption schemes in which officials and contractors colluded to overbill the state, use cheaper materials than reported and pocket the difference. The government hadn't released information about on-site forensic analyses, which experts said were necessary to determine causes and responsibility.
Rebuilding Without Answers
Scientists said the earthquakes delivered a near-fault pulse, concentrating energy at buildings' bases. Michael Schmitz, a Central University of Venezuela geologist formerly affiliated with the country's earthquake-monitoring agency, said: “It was truly instantaneous — very, very, very violent, very fast.” He said the pulse “abruptly knocked the support out from under the building.”
Eduardo Miranda, a Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, and a research team analyzed security-camera footage from near a bowling alley in Caraballeda. Eight buildings fell in less than a second, the video showed. Their paper reported one of the largest ground motions ever documented and the only quantitative information about ground motion near the rupture. Miranda said the number one reason for the large impact was “definitely how strong the ground motion was.”
Cleanup and rebuilding were underway, including demolitions using explosives. Thousands of displaced people had since lived in shelters, encampments or on sidewalks near their former homes, while some received public housing in Caracas. Weeks after the earthquakes, the government said it had found land in La Guaira where construction could soon begin. Experts urged caution: the extra design and construction work needed for earthquake-resistant high-rises could deter the state and some private investors from developing certain areas. Carlos Valdés, head of the seismology department at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, asked: “The question here is: at what cost?” He added: “I would put it another way: how much is a life worth?”