---
title: "The Amputees of Caracas, and the World That Looked Away"
description: "Four months after twin earthquakes killed more than 6,500 in Venezuela, survivors begin a lifelong recovery on dwindling aid"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-10-26T17:55:59Z
modified: 2026-10-26T23:28:12Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/the-amputees-of-caracas-and-the-world-that-looked-away-f3f8cf
language: en
tags: ["health", "disaster", "recovery", "prosthetics", "venezuela", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# The Amputees of Caracas, and the World That Looked Away

*Four months after twin earthquakes killed more than 6,500 in Venezuela, survivors begin a lifelong recovery on dwindling aid*

By Jan Sokol · October 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-amputees-of-caracas-and-the-world-that-looked-away-f3f8cf

## In brief

- Twin earthquakes hit Venezuela on June 24; the government confirms more than 6,500 dead and 226,696 treated for injuries
- Ricardo Contreras, 24, lost a leg and both parents; he is now legal guardian of his 16-year-old brother Andres
- UNICEF had raised $29.5m of $65.7m needed by September, a 55% shortfall; the Red Cross response was 39.8% funded
- Prostheses cost $3,000–$5,000 below-knee and $7,000–$12,000 above-knee, against an average salary of about $200 a month
- The Juan Pablo Dos Santos Foundation added about 200 people to its database after the quakes, atop a waiting list of hundreds

The new leg rests on a wooden countertop in a workshop in the hills of northwestern Caracas. It belongs, or will belong, to Ricardo Contreras, twenty-four years old, who on the night of June 24 lay beneath the rubble of his family’s building in the state of La Guaira for hours, his left leg pinned under a fallen door frame, the blood cut off. The leg could not be saved. The building was one of dozens in La Guaira to collapse when twin earthquakes struck Venezuela that night.

[Al Jazeera’s Catherine Ellis told his story](https://aljazeera.com/news/longform/2026/10/26/how-venezuelas-earthquake-amputees-adapt-to-life-without-limbs), and through it the story of a catastrophe the world has already half forgotten. More than 6,500 people have been confirmed dead, according to the authorities. At least 226,696 have received hospital treatment for their injuries. The government says it has compiled a census of the amputees, but no details have been made public — a number behind a ministry door.

## The brother, the parents

When the building came down, Ricardo fell in the bathroom hugging his mother. His brother Andres, sixteen, fell near their father. “She was telling me she was fine, but I saw that her head was covered with concrete, with a wall on top, and dust,” he said. Both parents suffocated while the family waited to be rescued. The family dog died too.

“One of the biggest achievements is that we survived,” Ricardo said, glancing toward his brother. “At first, when I found out Andres was well, I didn’t care about my leg too much. I would have chosen a thousand times over for Andres to be OK.”

Now he is the boy’s legal guardian. He has returned to the family’s truck parts business and to university, where a new semester has begun and where his professors, learning that he could not climb, moved his classes to the ground floor. “It was actually great going back,” he said. “My classmates have always been there, helping me.” The university has offered him a full scholarship to finish his studies. He hopes the brothers will soon get a home of their own through a government housing programme for earthquake victims.

But there are losses no programme can repair. “If my leg hurts, I take a pill, but with that, there’s nothing I can do. There’s no cure, there’s no remedy, there’s nothing,” he said of his parents. He remembers his mother cooking, singing, spoiling the dog; he credits his father with teaching the boys the value of work and of being strong. The brothers scroll through photographs on their phones — the family home overlooking the sea, an afternoon by the pool. “As time goes on, the crying is the same, but the reason is different,” Ricardo said. “Instead of crying so much from sadness, it’s more like remembering the good times.”

## One hundred kinds of knees

At Ortoprotecnica, the Caracas workshop that built the leg on the countertop, its director Bianca Damaso guides survivors through what comes after the hospital. For the amputee it takes two to three months of physiotherapy and preparation before a prosthesis — longer if the wounds heal slowly. “It’s a very individual process where you have to support each person from where they are,” she said, “because some are very anxious to have the prosthesis already, but their skin hasn’t even healed yet.”

The workshop offers more than 100 types of knees and more than 200 skin shades. But the first fitting is not the end. A child may need five or six replacement prostheses while growing; adults need adjustments and repairs without end. And then there are the questions medicine cannot answer with a knee joint. Survivors ask whether they will walk again, whether they will need a wheelchair, whether they will be able to urinate on their own. Many, Damaso says, wonder whether anyone will ever love them. “Right now, the challenges for them are going to be more than just physical. They’re mental battles.” Her workshop has one rule: “We tell them that the only thing that’s forbidden here is saying, ‘I can’t.’”

Karina Bechara, who lost both legs, was trapped for 23 hours, immobilised by a piece of heavy furniture that crushed them. Before the earthquakes she ran her own business and trained in high-intensity CrossFit; her children saw a mother who depended on no one. “Now I am the opposite, a mum who needs their help, a dependent mum,” she said. She has set herself a date — to stand on her new feet by December 1. “That motivates me every morning to get up and say, ‘One day less to go.’ It’s painful, yes, but we’re getting closer to the goal.” She calls her recovery an “emotional rollercoaster” and lets herself cry on the hard days. “Because if I don’t see the future for myself, no one else will.”

## The arithmetic of abandonment

Juan Pablo Dos Santos lost his own legs in a car accident in 2019 and later became an athlete and model. The foundation that bears his name now helps the earthquake’s amputees. He understood the scale of June’s tragedy, he said, when the first hospital he visited had a ward of twelve children, every one of them missing a limb or about to lose one. “They lost family members, their homes, their schools, their abilities, and on top of that, they’re missing a part of their body,” he said.

Then comes the bill. “A prosthesis for a below-knee amputation, which is a transtibial prosthesis, can cost between $3,000 and $5,000,” Dos Santos said. “And a prosthesis for an above-knee amputation can cost between $7,000 and $12,000.” Limbs with electronic components that answer the body’s muscles run into the tens of thousands. In a country where the average private-sector salary is not much more than $200 a month, these are prices from another planet. Even before the earthquake, his foundation’s waiting list ran to hundreds; since June, some 200 more names have been added to its database.

As the television cameras left, the money left with them. By September, the United Nations Children’s Fund said it had raised only $29.5m of the $65.7m it needs for its earthquake work in Venezuela — a shortfall of 55 percent. The International Red Cross reported its Venezuela response just 39.8 percent funded that same month.

There is an old rhythm to disasters: the earth shakes, the world gasps, the world forgets. What remains is always the same — a young man on crutches climbing a hill in Caracas, a woman counting down the days to December. “Of course, I’m worried about my financial situation,” Ricardo admitted; the family business has slowed since the earthquakes. “Sometimes it’s hard to cover all the expenses, given everything that’s happened, but we find a way. I think that’s what Venezuelans do: We’re always finding a way to make things work.”