The worst day in Victor Calderón’s life – a month ago to the day – unfolded while he was at sea.
When the powerful twin earthquakes devastated Venezuela’s northern coastline, the 49-year-old fisherman had been on the boat for 18 days and was told by radio that the building he and his family lived in had collapsed.
When he got back to shore, a staggering 26 members of his family were gone.
They include his sisters, their children and grandchildren, as well as his stepfather and nine cousins. Their ages ranged from two years old to their late 70s.
“I haven’t cried for them yet, not until I find the last ones who are missing,” he adds with stoicism.
Victor’s entire family lived in a public housing complex known as OPPE 26, located in Caraballeda. The town in La Guaira state is considered the Ground Zero of the tragedy.
His daughter and granddaughter thankfully survived and their much-reduced family now lives in a tent on a golf course.
One month on from the disaster, he is not the only one still searching for, and finding, loved ones.
More than 5,300 people are confirmed to have died in the quakes and more than 16,500 were injured, according to a tally updated almost daily by the government.
The government has not said how many people are still missing, but the figure is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.
As the afternoon sun went down at OPPE26, three bodies were pulled from beneath the rebar and rubble, including that of an 11-year-old girl.
Her father, heaving deep sobs, now finally able to grieve after his desperate month-long search for her has come to an end.
Rescue workers downed tools or said a prayer as the child’s body was delicately removed in black plastic sheeting, her father’s howls piercing the air and drowning out the sound of earthmoving equipment working nearby.
“This is soul-destroying,” says Magin Hernández, a member of another search team, weeping quietly. “For the rescuers, the families, the friends; just soul destroying”.
Federico Parra / AFP via Getty ImagesFor most survivors and victims’ relatives the soul-crushing grief is also combined with a deep and growing sense of anger at the authorities.
The resentment is palpable. Almost everyone you speak to at the Caraballeda housing complex asks the same questions: how could ten of 12 housing blocks collapse? Were the building plans flawed or corners cut or inadequate materials used? Is there evidence of negligence?
I put some those questions to Public Works Minister Juan José Ramírez as he toured the site.
The buildings were sound, he insisted, adding that no nation could have coped with the sheer scale of the disaster.
“This wasn’t one but two almost simultaneous earthquakes, both moving in different directions,” the minister argued.
“All around us you can see both public and private buildings were brought down,” he said, motioning across the road to other destroyed apartment blocks.
“The earthquake didn’t discriminate between the two.”
At one of the pancaked private buildings, in the coastal town of Catia La Mar, an unlikely rescue took place eight days after the earthquakes struck.
From beneath the concrete slabs, a security guard, Hernán Gil, was pulled out alive from an underground car park.
The jubilant scenes briefly lifted Venezuela’s spirits.
Today, Laura Barrios continues to search in the same building for her brother-in-law, whose body remains trapped in the same subterranean car park.
Most of the international crews that rallied for Gil have long since gone home and now even the earthmover, which was clearing the unstable debris, has been sent to another site.
The news that Laura’s family are searching on their own again came a day after they located the bodies of her sister-in-law and the children, aged 10 and three, huddled together in their bedroom.
“The other day was the Day of the Child in Venezuela,” Laura sobs. “But we have no children to celebrate. Ours are gone.”
She has been furious at the authorities for reacting slowly.
But she says the news that the heavy machinery is pulling out when her family still needs it has sapped her of the will to fight.
“What more can we say that this rubble doesn’t already tell us?” she asks, looking at the devastation surrounding us.
“Lost T-shirts, cutlery that was never used, crockery sets, toys. Entire lives, gone in just 39 seconds.”
In the queue for a hot meal at the World Central Kitchen – one of the US-based humanitarian agencies operating in Catia La Mar – people show characteristic Venezuelan good humour in the face of greater adversity than most have ever known.
While people need the food and bottled water, they also appreciate a smile or hug, gestures of human kindness and camaraderie.
Yet they return to cheap nylon tents, pitched on the curbside, their temporary homes for the foreseeable future.
This week, the government of Delcy Rodríguez donated 200 homes to affected families.
The overall need, though, may be 100 times higher. Reconstruction will take years and billions of dollars in investment – the World Bank has estimated that the twin quakes caused $19.6bn (£14.7bn) in damage.
Rodríguez was sworn in as acting president in January days after US forces seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and took him to New York to stand trial on charges of “narcoterrorism”.
While she has the backing of the Trump administration, it is Washington which is in control of Venezuela’s oil industry – the main source of revenue in this oil-rich country – so it is far from clear how the rebuild will unfold.
Many of those in tents once lived by Playa Pirata – a short stretch of beach which was full of visitors on the public holiday when the earthquakes hit.
They watched in desperation as their homes collapsed in front of them and ran towards their apartments to try to save relatives and pets trapped inside.
Theirs are just some of a thousand horror stories which Venezuelans still struggle to comprehend, and which have forever scarred a nation ill-equipped to cope.
Juan Baretto / AFP via Getty Images