Maracaibo (Venezuela).- The devastating earthquake on June 24th left such deep psychological trauma in Urumán Urdaneta’s wife that the entire family ended up packing their lives in Caracas to move 700 kilometers away from what had been their home until then and settle in the oil city of Maracaibo.
Daily fainting, insomnia, and a feeling of suffocation. This was how the post-traumatic disorder of Liliana Machado, Urdaneta’s wife, manifested after she saw one of the walls of her house collapse during the 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes that have left at least 3,811 dead and 16,740 injured.
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The couple, with roots in the Wayú ethnic group native to Zulia state (northwest), lived with their three children, all of legal age and one of them—the youngest—with a disability, in the El Junquito parish of Caracas, and Machado’s mother was visiting. They were watching television together in the living room when the double earthquake began, Urdaneta, 63, tells EFE.
To this state, Zulia, which borders Colombia, several families have arrived from the states affected by the earthquakes. Many people have expressed their refusal to return to areas like La Guaira, the state most devastated by the quakes.
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Going out for health
“It wasn’t a tremor, a tremor (…) it’s like a jolt because it was as if they were pulling us that way -and- they pulled us this way, and since it lasted many seconds, panic and fear set in,” recounts Urdaneta, recalling how she experienced the double earthquake that caused significant damage to her home, without the structure collapsing.
“I surrendered to it then. I grabbed my son -the youngest- and hugged him (…) and I surrendered to the situation,” he continues.
Urdaneta points out that fortunately nothing happened to his family, but his wife was left with trauma “and she would faint almost every day” and for that reason, he says, a doctor who treated her advised him “to get her out of there.”
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“So, for the sake of my wife’s health, we left there,” he states.
The dilemma
They arrived in their native Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, ten days after the earthquakes and now they are not very clear about what the fu/ture holds for them. Urdaneta says he feels like a stranger in his homeland.
“My wife no longer wants to return. That is her position at this moment. Clearly, she is not doing well right now because (…) She is undergoing some psychology treatments and some sessions,” he insists.
The Government of Venezuela states that 17,907 people were left homeless after the earthquakes and that 16,891 are in 87 camps.
The regional director of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Lía Poggio, told EFE last Thursday that after these types of events, the population is often advised to “move to other places” and that there is usually displacement and internal migration, although she noted that “each country has its own dynamics.”
Urdaneta, meanwhile, is evaluating how to adapt to his new life in Maracaibo which, despite being an oil city, faces serious deficiencies in water, internet, gas, and electricity services, especially because his new home is located in a rural area.
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He is also trying to find ways to enter the labor market. In reality, he would like to return to Caracas, where he worked in automotive service and mechanical maintenance.
Adding to the dilemma is the fact that their 26, 22, and 18-year-old children have built their lives in Caracas, “part of their childhood,” and would also like to return.
