At least 164 peo­ple have died and 971 were in­jured af­ter a pair of pow­er­ful quakes rocked Venezuela, Act­ing Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez said Thurs­day, adding that res­cue teams are rush­ing to the hard­est-hit ar­eas to free peo­ple trapped un­der rub­ble.

Wednes­day evening’s 7.2 and 7.5 mag­ni­tude earth­quakes were among the strongest to strike Venezuela in more than a cen­tu­ry and could be felt through­out the re­gion. The coun­try’s main air­port was dam­aged and closed, while build­ings were evac­u­at­ed in places as far away as Brazil’s Ama­zon, about 1,700 kilo­me­ters (1,050 miles) from Venezuela’s cap­i­tal, Cara­cas.

Tele­vi­sion broad­casts Thurs­day showed res­cue work­ers us­ing pow­er tools to work their way in­to piles of rub­ble where build­ings once stood. Pan­icked res­i­dents of the cap­i­tal were sent pour­ing in­to the streets, and af­ter the quakes many peo­ple walked among the de­bris search­ing for the miss­ing among col­lapsed build­ings and top­pled elec­tric poles.