UN briefing says system scaling up after Venezuela earthquakes; $15 million CERF allocation announced

A UN staff member briefing the press said the Secretary-General had called Venezuela's acting president to pledge the UN system's support after a series of earthquakes and that humanitarian partners are mobilizing search-and-rescue teams and relief supplies.

The briefing said the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, allocated $15 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to support life‑saving assistance including health care, shelter, food and water. "This is to support urgent life‑saving assistance," the staff member said.

Agency updates cited by the briefing emphasized the operational focus in the first 72 hours: the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is coordinating with national authorities and international urban search‑and‑rescue teams, and some 30 international teams — about 1,600 personnel and roughly 100 dogs — are deploying to Venezuela.

The World Food Programme (WFP) told the briefing it has enough supplies to feed more than 10,000 families for two months and noted more than 1,400 metric tons of partner relief items are staged at a WFP‑managed UN humanitarian response depot in Panama. UNICEF said an estimated 3.9 million children live in areas affected by the quake and has allocated $1.5 million from internal resources and $1 million from global humanitarian thematic funds to support response priorities.

UNHCR teams were described as scaling up core relief item distribution and coordinating protection and emergency shelter support in partnership with national authorities.

The briefing concluded that the UN and partners are "fully mobilized" to work with the government so that assistance reaches those most in need as quickly as possible and noted that a video briefing by the UN resident coordinator in Venezuela, Gianluca Rampolla del Tindaro, is scheduled for Monday.

The briefing did not provide an exact nationwide casualty toll for the earthquakes; the detailed operational figures and needs assessments were described as still being compiled.