A pair of pow­er­ful earth­quakes rocked Venezuela, tear­ing down build­ings, clos­ing the coun­try’s main air­port and send­ing pan­icked res­i­dents of the cap­i­tal pour­ing in­to the streets. At least 32 have died, the act­ing pres­i­dent said Thurs­day, warn­ing that the toll was ex­pect­ed to rise.

Footage on state TV showed three chil­dren, cov­ered in dust but alive, pulled from the rub­ble in La Guaira state, which Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez de­scribed as a “dis­as­ter zone” and the area hard­est hit by Wednes­day evening’s 7.2 and 7.5 mag­ni­tude earth­quakes.

Pow­er­ful back-to-back earth­quakes struck Venezuela on Wednes­day evening, col­laps­ing build­ings and send­ing pan­icked res­i­dents in­to the streets as com­mu­ni­ties across the South Amer­i­can coun­try sus­tained dam­age.