Security guard rescued after 8 days trapped in Venezuela earthquake rubble

A man in his 40s was rescued Wednesday (local time), eight days after a series of powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela, after multinational rescue teams spent 70 hours working to free him from the rubble of a collapsed building.

According to international media including AP, AFP and CNN, Hernan Alberto Gil Flores, 43, a night security guard at a shopping center in Catia La Mar in Venezuela's La Guaira state, had been trapped roughly 9 meters beneath the debris of a building that collapsed in the June 24 earthquake.

Rescue teams detected signs of life June 28 using acoustic detection equipment and radar, confirming he had survived.

A Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer told AP that when Gil Flores was found, he had asked the team not to tell his wife he was alive, in case something went wrong. "But we were never going to leave him behind," the rescuer recalled.

A joint rescue operation led by Chile, with teams from Venezuela, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico, then launched a massive 70-hour effort to extract him.

The operation was repeatedly endangered by the building's unstable structure, heavy rain and ongoing aftershocks that caused the excavation tunnel to collapse multiple times. Rescuers carefully cut through metal framework to carve out a passage, accounting for the risk of further collapse in adjacent structures.

Throughout the operation, teams fed a search camera through gaps in the concrete to monitor his condition. They also used hoses and syringes to deliver water, electrolyte drinks and medical IV fluids to prevent dehydration.

A veteran Chilean rescuer kept up a continuous conversation with Gil Flores throughout the operation to help keep him calm.

Video released just before the rescue showed Gil Flores passing the time by drawing pictures amid the rubble.

A UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) official at the scene told CNN that surviving seven days after an earthquake was possible only through "a miraculous rescue."

The generally accepted "golden hour" window for rescuing survivors after a disaster is 72 hours, or three days.

Gil Flores survived because his security booth held its shape as the surrounding concrete structure collapsed around him during the quake, shielding him from the debris and trapping an air pocket inside that kept him alive, AP reported.

As Gil Flores was carried out on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask and loaded into an ambulance, rescue workers from multiple countries erupted in cheers and embraced one another in celebration.

One rescuer at the scene told AFP: "I have never seen such a difficult operation. I'm not sure there has ever been a rescue effort that lasted this long."

Gil Flores was taken directly to a hospital after the rescue and is in stable condition. His wife, speaking to CNN, said she had spent days fearing the worst before learning he was alive — a moment she described as a ray of hope. "He held on just like a true hero," she said.

The couple have two children, ages 10 and 8.