Venezuela: Dog rescued from rubble after eight days

Buddy is known these days as the “miracle dog” after he was trapped for eight days and survived the devastating double earthquake that hit Venezuela.

The six-year-old beagle was found alive under the rubble in Caraballeda, near Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. Caraballeda is one of the cities worst affected in the earthquakes that hit the region on June 24.

Buddy was meanwhile reunited with his owner, Gabriela Alves, where he was treated at a McDonald’s, which had been set up as a temporary shelter. At that stage, the local takeaway restaurant was also used as a temporary field hospital to assist survivors who lived in the nearby government apartment blocks.

Alves threw her arms around her loved one and said it was a miracle that he survived. She and her family lost everything in the earthquakes, she added.

She was at the home of a relative at the time of the earthquakes. In the days that followed, she frequently visited the restaurant to see if there might be news of Buddy. At times she also went looking for him herself, but all that remained of her place of residence was her mother’s bedroom.

It was during one of these searches that Alves could very softly hear a bark and then she saw it: Buddy’s one white ear sticking out through a crack in the concrete. Local rescue workers later came to lend a hand and so Buddy was pulled out from under the broken pieces of concrete.

Meanwhile, local authorities confirmed that the death toll had reached nearly 4,500 by Sunday. According to Venezuela’s government, there are currently as many as 191,500 people living in temporary camps. Others still spend their days on the streets or in other temporary shelters.

Tens of thousands of people are still reported missing. The government has not yet released any estimates, but the UN estimates that as many as 50,000 people may still be missing after the 7.2 and 7.5 quakes.

• Additional sources: The Telegraph, The New York Post & CNN