The Earthquake in Venezuela: Another Man-made Disaster
Most of the presumed deaths from the recent earthquake in Venezuela could have been avoided.
Why?
Because the cause of the massive number of deaths is an autocratic and corrupt regime.
Among the regime’s “achievements” are flimsy buildings.
Firstly, due to circumventing existing legislation with a stack of money under the table here and there.
I have no proof whether that is the case in Venezuela, but that has been the case in every major earthquake in highly corrupt countries. It was the case in Turkey in 1999 and 2023, in China in 2008 and in a string of other places where earthquakes meet rampant corruption.
Venezuela ranks as 180th out of 182 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2025. Only Somalia and South Sudan fare worse.
And corruption is never limited to the people at the top. Wealth does not trickle down, but corruption does. Leaders set the norm. If they are thoroughly corrupt, you can assume any local building inspector is, too.
Secondly, Venezuela has flimsy buildings because the legislation it has in place is substandard.
For corrupt leaders, “investing today for a safer tomorrow” is not on their minds.
You cannot expect anything but self-interest from a regime that steals money from a food programme.
The same mindset is also the reason why the Chavista regime has seen to it that health and rescue services are underfunded, further adding to the high death toll.
Wealth does not trickle down, but corruption does.
Corruption is not just about selfishness and money ending up in the wrong pockets. Corruption is also about what is not being done. Corruption is theft of money that should have been spent on public goods and services.
The BBC reported on a grieving mother still hoping to find her teenage daughters. Those two girls will likely not be found alive. They will no longer giggle about who is the most handsome boy in school, discuss what they will do when they grow up, or give Mum a hasty kiss before running off to school.
If Venezuela had been a bit more like Chile, requiring all new buildings to withstand severe earthquakes and have corruption on par with Europe, two beloved girls may still have been alive.
Many of the other 50,000 people missing after the earthquake could also have been alive if Maduro and his cronies hadn’t been so busy stealing money from their compatriots and making it permissible for others to do the same.
Then fewer people would have been crushed under the rubble, perhaps suffocating to a slow death. With a tendency towards claustrophobia, I can imagine the horror.
And corruption can only thrive when people are not held to account. Thus, corruption thrives in autocracies like Venezuela. That Maduro now sits in a prison in America has made no difference.
Corruption and oppression are root causes of disasters, but those aspects are seldom mentioned by the international media.
A positive sign from the reporting this time is that I have seen no mention of the earthquake as a “natural” disaster. Earthquakes themselves are natural. Their impact is not. There is nothing natural about thousands of deaths due to oppression and stealing from the public. The only one I have come across who called this a “natural” disaster was the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez. When you represent one of the worst regimes on the planet, you need to have something to blame.
This earthquake was another man-made disaster. As long as countries are rife with corruption, there will be many more.
Thanks for reading! And please, never say “natural disaster.” Storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions are natural. What impact they have on us is, mostly, up to us.
LINKS
Vast corruption network in food programme
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in 2025.