**Powerful Venezuela earthquake collapses buildings in Caracas; tsunami alerts cancelled**

A powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck off Venezuela's Caribbean coast on Wednesday evening, collapsing buildings in Caracas, triggering panic across the region and briefly prompting tsunami alerts for parts of the Caribbean before all warnings were cancelled.

The main quake was preceded by a powerful foreshock measuring between 7.1 and 7.2 magnitude, with the two events occurring less than a minute apart in what seismologists described as a rare "doublet" earthquake. The epicentre was located near the coastal city of Morón in Carabobo state, west of Caracas.