An Argentine soccer player for a Venezuelan team lost his wife and two young children in the powerful twin earthquakes that struck the country last week.
Before their deaths were confirmed, Lucas Trejo described to Noticias Telemundo how he was “going through the rubble with my hands” searching for his wife, Yanina, and their young son and daughter.
Noticias Telemundo confirmed the deaths with Trejo’s soccer club, Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira, which mourned the tragic loss of their player’s family.
“For the eternal rest of Yanina de Trejo (wife), Aarón Trejo (son) and Ainhoa Trejo (daughter) of our player Lucas Trejo. The great family of Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira offers their words of condolence for the death of his family members,” the team wrote on Instagram.
Trejo had been searching for his family since Wednesday, when a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck near the town of San Felipe shortly after 6 p.m., followed by a more powerful 7.5-magnitude quake 39 seconds later near Yumare.
More than 1,400 people were killed, and some 3,150 were injured in the earthquakes.
Trejo told Noticias Telemundo “Ahora” that the family’s home in La Guaira, the hardest-hit area, collapsed in the quake.
“I was playing at a game far from my home. I ran back to see if my family was good,” he said, getting emotional. “The building was destroyed.”
He told Noticias Telemundo that he was digging with his hands through the rubble because there was no digging equipment, and, even after one machine arrived, it was too small to lift the big pieces of debris.
Trejo also described his desperate attempts to find his young son, Aarón, in hospitals after rumors circulated that a young child had come out alive from the building. “I don’t know where my family is. I’m looking for them, but I don’t know,” he said, breaking up.
Another soccer player from the same team, Héctor Bello, lost his wife, Andrea Bello, when she died protecting their baby girl, family member David Barreto told Noticias Telemundo.
“When everything crumbled all she did was get on top of the baby,” he said, adding it was her sense of protecting her child.
Bello posted a tribute to his wife, writing on Instagram to his daughter about his wife: “But amidst all this pain, I know that if she had just a minute to say something to me, she’d tell me to protect you with my life—just as she did—and never to forget to buy you those bananas you love so much.”
Tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for amid a desperate search for survivors.
Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Sunday that time was running out to rescue people still trapped under debris.
Interim President Delcy Rodríguez said in a televised address Sunday that search and rescue operations would continue after 33 people were found over the weekend.
“We recovered people alive today,” she said. “Therefore, the rescue operations will not be suspended.”
