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Cat pulled from Venezuela quake rubble as death toll tops 5,200

▶ Watch Video: Venezuelans reunite with pets rescued by volunteers after deadly earthquakes

A weakened cat was pulled from under the rubble of a collapsed residential complex in Venezuela on Saturday in what one rescuer described as a “ray of hope” in the aftermath of deadly earthquakes.

More than 5,200 people were killed when back-to-back quakes struck the South American nation on June 24, with the coastal state of La Guaira hit hardest.

Volunteer rescue worker Andres Carvajal said he spotted the cat during a search in a La Guaira housing complex that had been reduced to rubble.

“We saw the cat, it got scared and went back inside, deeper into the building,” Carvajal told AFP. It was unclear when it had become trapped.

“I went in, took off my glove, put some cat food on my arm… It gradually came closer and, of course, ate with a bit of desperation,” the 21-year-old university student said.

VENEZUELA-EARTHQUAKE-AFTERMATH
A volunteer rescuer holds a cat after pulling it out from under the rubble of a building damaged by the June 24 earthquakes, in Caraballeda, state of La Guaira; Venezuela, on July 18, 2026. 

Juan BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images

Carvajal had written “el gato” — “the cat” — on his helmet, which he said had been his nickname since elementary school.

He and other students from the Central University of Venezuela, in Caracas, formed an association to help with rescue operations.

Once rescued, the cat was handed over to a small camp where vets were on standby. It was given fluids and cleaned before being sent to a shelter.

“I’m very happy we found it,” Carvajal said. “It’s impossible not to feel empathy for any life that’s here. And finding this little cat is obviously a ray of light, a ray of hope.”

At the end of June, a rescue team pulled a small dog from the rubble in the same area. Footage captured a search and rescue team from El Salvador pulling the dog from a crumbled building in Caraballeda. In the footage, the sound of barking can be heard coming from a dark crevice. The video then shows the canine enthusiastically licking the face of her rescuer after being taken out of the collapsed structure as a crowd applauded.

Outside what used to be a McDonald’s restaurant in La Guaira, volunteer veterinarians set up a makeshift animal clinic for dogs, cats and other pets injured or left ownerless by the back-to-back earthquakes. With few tools but an admirable drive to save animals, they described their work as “war medicine.”

Venezuela earthquake death toll tops 5,200

The death toll from the earthquakes has risen to 5,208, according to an updated official tally on Sunday. The number of injured remains at 16,740, according to the president of the Venezuelan legislature, Jorge Rodriguez.

In La Guaira, the recovery of bodies continues from the rubble of dozens of collapsed buildings. Venezuelan authorities have not provided an estimate for the number of people still missing.

In La Guaira, nearly 20,000 homeless people are crammed into makeshift camps set up in stadiums, public squares, and on sidewalks.

More than 850 buildings were damaged and 190 collapsed completely, according to official figures.

Former US archivists warn that Trump’s effort to ignore records law jeopardizes national security and government continuity

By CNN
(CNN) — Former leaders of the National Archives — which preserves and protects the nation’s most important documents — are urging a federal appeals court to reject the Trump administration’s effort to ignore the Presidential Records Act, a decades old law that requires presidents save all official records from their time in office.Six archivists, who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, argue that the law is critical in maintaining “continuity of governance” and protecting national security.The archivists — a coalition covering every living person to have previously held the role before Marco Rubio’s brief appointment to the position at the beginning of Trump’s second term — filed an amicus brief Wednesday in support of a lawsuit from presidential scholars, historians and public transparency groups.The legal fight began after the Trump administration said it believed the president did not need to comply with decades-old record-keeping obligations set by Congress in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. The law, which Trump’s Justice Department has claimed is unconstitutional, is intended to preserve documents so that future presidents, members of Congress, courts and the public can understand how an administration made critical decisions.“Preserving presidential records ensures that new leaders can have immediate and ongoing access to the data, strategy, and rationale behind past policy decisions,” the group said, noting that, in their experience, the most “frequent request for preserved presidential records comes from the incoming president’s national security advisors.”The archivists signed on to the brief are Trudy Huskamp Peterson, John W. Carlin, David S. Ferriero, Debra Steidel Wall, Colleen Shogan and William J. Bosanko — as well as Gary M. Stern, a former agency general counsel.The plea from the former archivists comes months after a federal judge in Washington said that White House staff must preserve their official records while the lawsuit plays out in court but declined to put any restrictions directly on the president, the vice president, the National Archives and archivist.In the May ruling, US District Judge John Bates concluded that the Presidential Records Act (PRA) was likely constitutional, rebuking the stance taken by the Justice Department earlier this year. The Justice Department has appealed the ruling to the US DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are slated for October 16.The PRA requires presidents and their staff to preserve White House records and turn those records over to the National Archives at the end of their administrations.It was instrumental in the chain of events that led to Trump’s prosecution for allegedly mishandling classified documents that he took from the White House at the end of his first term.The legal fight stems from a conclusion from Trump’s Office of Legal Counsel, a Justice Department office that gives advice to the executive branch, that the law was unconstitutional. The OLC memo was seen as an audacious move for a number of reasons, including for how it seemed to eschew Supreme Court precedent backing Congress’ power to regulate presidential record preservation. The guidance only addressed the preservation of email and text messages, rather than all electronic records, which the PRA covers.The American Historical Association and the left-leaning government transparency group American Oversight quickly filed a lawsuit, warning that presidential records they intend to use for their research “will be irretrievably lost” if the court didn’t intervene.The former archivists say the PRA “helps to bridge the gap between the outgoing and incoming administrations.”“Geopolitical tensions do not pause for an inauguration,” they wrote in the court filing. “Presidential records include the entire holdings of the National Security Council… such as sensitive intelligence assessments, treaty negotiations, and operational contingency plans. Ensuring that these files are preserved and seamlessly made available to new administration officials allows incoming national security advisors and cabinet officials to evaluate active threats, maintain diplomatic momentum, and make informed decisions during unexpected global crises.”The administration has rebuffed concerns, insisting that the “lion’s share” of presidential records are being preserved, because work being done by presidential staff on White House-issued phones is being kept.CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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