A 43-year-old security guard in Venezuela was found alive Thursday in the wreckage of a shopping center, eight days after twin earthquakes left him buried beneath the debris and killed more than 2,200 people.
Hernán Alberto Gil Flores was pulled from the collapsed basement of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in La Guaira, a coastal state hit hard by the powerful June 24 quakes.
“When we found him, he asked us not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn’t make it,” Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado told The Associated Press.
Emergency teams had first picked up signs of life under the rubble over the weekend, leading them to establish contact with Gil Flores as they planned the painstaking effort to bring him out.
Rescue workers attend to Hernán Alberto Gil Flores after he was pulled from the rubble eight days after he was trapped by twin earthquakes that struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Gil Flores had been on an overnight shift when the first earthquake hit. Although large sections of the building gave way, the small security booth where he was stationed remained standing, shielding him from falling concrete and creating a pocket of space that allowed him to survive.
The rescue was slowed by aftershocks, heavy rain and the danger of shifting debris. Crews used a telescopic camera to communicate with Gil Flores and passed water and liquid nutrients through a narrow opening to sustain him in the final stretch before he was freed.
Rescue workers carry Hernán Alberto Gil Flores Gil after he was pulled from the rubble eight days after he was trapped by twin earthquakes that struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
His wife, Gusbimar González, said the family’s despair turned to hope after rescuers reached her husband.
“When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness,” she told the AP. The couple has two children, ages 8 and 10.
MORE STORY: Controversy Erupts Over U.S. Cancer Drug Patent Tied to Secret CIA Document
Video from the scene showed rescuers carrying Gil Flores on a stretcher covered with an orange tarp through cheering crowds before loading him into a Red Cross ambulance. Members of the Costa Rican Red Cross hugged one another after the rescue.
Rescue workers carry Hernán Alberto Gil Flores after he was pulled from the rubble eight days after he was trapped by twin earthquakes that struck Catia La Mar, Venezuela, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
The operation was led by Chilean firefighters and included search-and-rescue teams from Costa Rica, the United States, Portugal, Mexico and other countries.
The shopping center collapsed after twin earthquakes measuring magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 struck northern Venezuela on June 24, destroying tens of thousands of buildings, killing more than 2,200 people and injuring more than 11,000 others.
Gil Flores’ rescue offered a rare moment of hope after days of devastation.
On Tuesday, emergency workers rescued a 2-year-old boy who had been trapped beneath the rubble for six days.
A man wearing a Barcelona soccer team jersey searches through earthquake rubble in La Guaira, Venezuela, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
On Saturday, the U.S. State Department shared video showing American search-and-rescue teams pulling a 9-month-old girl alive from a collapsed structure. The infant was rescued along with her mother, the State Department told News Agency. Both suffered only minor injuries, according to the rescue team.
The U.S. government has mobilized $150 million in humanitarian aid to help Venezuela respond to the disaster.
