Tragic Spiral: Venezuelan Escape Turns Into New Colombian Disaster

The nightmares of 17‑year‑old Winder and 15‑year‑old Deivi Delfín began with a sleepless night on 24 September, when a 7.2 and a 7.5 magnitude quake hit La Guaira, the Venezuelan coast that had already suffered from earlier disasters. The brothers hugged, listened, and then the world turned to dust—their 12‑storey apartment collapsed, burying mother Yusmani, grandmother Carmen, and moissé under concrete.

The 6,300 deaths left a void that could not be filled. Deivi and Winder joined rescue efforts, which left them exhausted and hungry. When their father Deivid finally found them after a frantic search, the two boys were already planning their future, determined to make their mother proud.

Three days later the world shook again. The brothers fled to Cali, Colombia, where their father worked, hoping for fresh air and hope. The tears that had once-grown inside the collapsed walls were shared with new walls. On the first Sunday in October, a 7.4 magnitude quake struck the same region, killing several hundred. The brothers felt that terror echo in the air—realising they had left one catastrophe only to catch the next.

In the rubble of their Venezuelan apartment they had found the signature of their own trauma: a plastic bag that the mother used to dye her hair and the tiny sandals of moissé. The discovery of a flower skirt stitched by their grandmother, a Bible, and fragments of a shopping list meant that the family’s broken story was still tied to the remains of a home. Winder saw the mother’s body resting under the concrete; he broke down as he held her hand in memory. Their father, who had been gone, collapsed as the boy’s head brushed his father’s hand.

Their search for a home in Cali drew them closer together. Living among low‑rise homes on the outskirts, they still watched the aftershocks. “We’ve been through this before,” they told each other as a new quake rattled the street. The country’s trauma was not finished; the family’s story continued, a single thread through a cascade of catastrophes, while the brothers’ future, carved by each quake, remains uncertain.