CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP) — The United States (US) military raced to reopen a major port in Venezuela to ease aid deliveries on Monday as the deaths from last week’s twin earthquakes reached more than 1,700 with tens of thousands still reported missing.

Five days after powerful back-to-back quakes flattened entire neighbourhoods of multi-story buildings in the coastal state of La Guaira, hopes of finding survivors are fading.

At a makeshift morgue set up in a port warehouse in La Guaira, hundreds of bodies were stored in white and black body bags and coffins waiting to be identified, an AFP correspondent reported.