DORAL, Fla. — Andrea Brito was among the donors and volunteers who worked hard on Friday despite their pain after the devastating 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes struck Venezuela.
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Brito, who was doing her part to push a flow of aid from South Florida to the disaster zone, couldn’t stop thinking about her uncle Roberto Brito and aunt Kairol Piñero, who vanished on Wednesday in La Guaira.
Brito, who had a flyer with pictures of them and Norelys Marrero, hopes they may still be alive and waiting for help under the rubble. Volunteers were searching, but they lacked machinery and tools.
“We are trying to find resources to help lift the concrete that collapsed on top of them,” said Brito at El Arepazo in Doral.
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The Venezuelan restaurant, open 24 hours, seven days a week, at the Chevron gas station, at 10191 NW 58th St., was among the drop-off locations collecting aid to be delivered to the local nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission’s warehouse in Doral.
“I haven’t stopped crying since the earthquake,” said Susanna Taddei, a Venezuelan-American LGBTQ+ rights activist who was dropping off aid at El Arepazo.
Taddei said the civilians, who were trying to rescue survivors from the rubble, were in desperate need of equipment, tools, and parts such as grinding wheels to cut through metal.
Read more Helping Venezuela: Starlink offers free service through July 25, but a kit is $470
Related list: Drop-off locations in South Florida
More HELPING VENEZUELA coverage
- Food For The Poor packs disaster relief kits with ‘hopeful’ hand-written notes
- U.S. Southern Command focuses on airport damage
- State Department deploys Miami-Dade search-and-rescue team
- Miami Beach opens 4 new aid drop-off locations – Clone
- Miami-Dade’s tax collector opens 11 drop-off locations
- Doral opens 4 aid drop-off locations
- Aid drop-off location opens in Homestead
- Starlink offers free service through July 25, but a kit is $470
- International Medical Corps deploys staff, needs donations
- Save The Children asks for emergency fund donations
- Samaritan’s Purse focuses on ‘emergency field hospital’
- Red Cross asks for Disaster Response Emergency Fund donations
- UN asks for donations for ‘underfunded’ program for kids
- World Vision asks for ‘disaster relief fund’ donations
- World Central Kitchen asks for donations for fresh meals
- United Way Miami launches ‘Operation Helping Hands’
