Barbados has deployed a new team of 61 Barbados Defence Force personnel and civilian medical volunteers to Venezuela as part of a planned rotation of the field hospital established after June’s devastating earthquakes, BDF Chief of Staff Brigadier Carlos Lovell said Tuesday,

The BDF will maintain a contingent of just over 100 personnel providing care on the ground, Brigadier Lovell said, as the team prepared to board their flight to Caracas at Grantley Adams International Airport.

Northern Venezuela was struck by two powerful earthquakes approximately 40 seconds apart on June 24, with a magnitude 7.2 foreshock followed by a magnitude 7.5 mainshock, making it the country’s strongest recorded earthquake in more than 125 years.