CARACAS — The wife and two children of Argentine footballer Lucas Trejo are among the hundreds confirmed dead following the devastating twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela, his club has announced.
Trejo, a 38-year-old defender for Venezuelan second-division side Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira, spent three days desperately searching through the rubble of his home before rescue teams recovered the bodies of his wife, Yanina, and their two young children, Aaron and Ainhoa.
The veteran footballer had been away at a team training camp in the capital, Caracas, when the rare “doublet” disaster—two powerful earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 striking just 39 seconds apart—shook the country on Wednesday evening.
‘A horrific scene’
Upon hearing news of the disaster, Trejo rushed back to his home in La Guaira, the coastal state hardest hit by the seismic shocks.
“He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been,” his brother-in-law, Ricardo Ardiles, told reporters, describing the immediate aftermath as a horrific scene of total structural collapse.
In an emotional tribute posted on social media alongside a family photograph, Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira stated it “deeply mourns the irreparable loss” of its player’s family, adding: “Lucas, you are not alone. Your family at Marítimo La Guaira is with you.”
Football community devastated
The Venezuelan Football Federation (FVF) confirmed that the disaster has taken a heavy toll on the country’s sporting community, claiming the lives of several rising athletic stars.
Among the victims is Yimvert Berroteran, an 18-year-old international prospect who recently represented Venezuela at the Under-17 World Cup. Young domestic league players Víctor Palacios and Razan Sijaa were also confirmed to have died in the collapses.
In another tragedy, the partner of footballer Héctor Bello died while using her body to shield their toddler from falling debris. “I’ll make sure to remind our baby girl how wonderful you were and how much you loved her,” Bello wrote in a poignant tribute online.
The death toll from the disaster has climbed past 1,500, with Venezuelan authorities warning that tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for as rescue operations enter a critical phase.
International casualties are also rising, with Chinese state media confirming that at least eight Chinese nationals are among the dead.
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