Venezuela acting president insists government tried its best in rescue

Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodríguez late Thursday pushed back against complaints that the government responded too slowly to the disaster and left civilians to shoulder most of the rescue efforts.

"We did not wait one day, two days or three days. We activated immediately," Rodríguez told foreign journalists, wearing a black ribbon as a symbol of mourning. She acknowledged that, "Naturally, at the sites where the building collapsed, the first people to arrive were survivors of the collapse itself, relatives and neighbors."

When pressed on reports that residents of La Guaira were on their own for the first 48 hours after the quakes, forced to search for neighbors and loved ones with their bare hands, Rodríguez railed against what she called "narratives manufactured in propaganda laboratories."

"The first media narrative concocted in the media was: 'Everyone should go down to La Guaira to cause chaos, to hinder the search and rescue efforts,' " she said.

"To politicize a humanitarian tragedy like this - when the Venezuelan government and its authorities have spared no effort, public, private, national, or international - is disgraceful," she said, her voice rising in anger.