At 22:05 UTC on 24 June 2026, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake ruptured the San Sebastián fault 28 km southeast of Yumare in Yaracuy state, northern Venezuela, just thirty-eight seconds after a magnitude 7.2 foreshock struck the same fault around 6 km away. The pair was felt across Caracas, La Guaira, Valencia and Maracay as one violent, drawn-out shock lasting close to two minutes. Confirmed deaths climbed to at least 2,295 by the end of June, with around 11,300 injured, 15,800 displaced and 43,000 to 50,000-plus still reported missing; nearly 800 buildings collapsed.
By raw magnitude this was a mid-table event: 193 earthquakes since 1970 were strictly larger. What turned it into a national catastrophe was where it struck and what stood on top of it, shallow strike-slip shaking under a dense coastal population housed largely in unreinforced brick and adobe, with almost no earthquake insurance in place. The UN and UNDP put direct economic loss at US$4.7bn to US$8.7bn, and brokers have warned the true cost could top US$10bn, yet insured loss will be a small fraction of that. It was the strongest quake to hit Venezuela in more than a century, landing on a fault, and a sovereign, with almost no capacity to absorb it.