Survivors Airlifted From Flood Zone

Elite soldiers rappelled from helicopters Saturday to help flood survivors stranded on buildings enveloped in up to three stories of mud and water.

President Hugo Chavez announced on national television this morning that the official death toll from torrential rains in Venezuela surpassed 500. With an estimated 6,000 people missing, nations from around the world rushed to send emergency aid.

“Today, I was informed that we already have more than 500 bodies in a collection point that is being coordinated” by authorities, Chavez said. The 500 were all believed to be in the state of Vargas, he said.

Rescued victims stumbling off the helicopters at the nation’s main airport, which has turned into a chaotic refugee center, said some northern coastal towns along the Caribbean Sea were completely buried in mud and debris.

“The town doesn’t exist anymore,” said Gabriela Gonzalez, 22, a resident of Carmen de Uria, a coastal town northeast of the capital, Caracas.

Authorities conceded that the disaster was much greater than previously thought and had become one of the worst natural calamities in the South American nation’s history.

Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said 150,000 people were homeless. President Chavez acknowledged that entire coastal regions had been turned into cemeteries.

Rain continued Saturday but was light enough to allow rescue teams to clear debris, recover bodies and ferry thousands of stranded victims from submerged towns to Simon Bolivar International Airport in La Guaira. In some areas, rescuers on motorcycles searched for survivors on muddy hillsides.

At the airport, thousands of victims were sprawled in waiting lounges and slept on floors with whatever belongings they were able to salvage.

Rescue workers sprinted out to helicopters with stretchers to help unload survivors. Doctors wrapped casts around fractured arms and legs and injected people with antibiotics.

Chavez, a former paratrooper, took personal command of a paratroop unit Saturday.

Dressed in combat fatigues, Chavez said that the 1,000-man unit would first provide food and water rations, and then drop communications supplies so that people can signal pilots to ask for more help. He also called in ships carrying amphibious vehicles to try to reach victims by sea.

Chavez said 25 countries had offered relief help. The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Marine Gen. Charles E. Wilhelm, was to arrive in Venezuela on Monday, and the United States sent a C-130 Hercules transport plane, a DC-8 jet and nine helicopters. Cuba sent 130 doctors. Mexico contributed two Boeing 727s and two Hercules transport planes, along with 220 soldiers and disaster relief experts.

Venezuela was drenched by torrential rain Wednesday. The downpour triggered avalanches of mud, rocks and boulders.

Much of the nation remained largely paralyzed Saturday. The highway between Caracas and the airport was partly blocked by boulders and mud, and all commercial flights were canceled for the third straight day.

Insurance experts estimated that the disaster caused at least $2 billion in damage.