Utah’s Venezuelan community gathers to honor victims, aid survivors after deadly earthquakes

MURRAY, Utah — People with ties to Venezuela gathered in Murray on Sunday, sharing stories from families who lost loved ones and from those whose relatives are on the ground delivering resources to communities impacted by the disaster.

On June 24, Venezuela experienced two major earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, which have killed thousands of people since then.

The gathering was hosted by an organization called Alianza Venezolana Utah.

People in the community sang and shared moments of silence for parents, cousins and siblings in Venezuela at Murray Park. One of those people was South Jordan resident Ludmila Ruiz.

Ruiz said her younger brother met up with friends at his home in La Guaira to watch the World Cup when tragedy struck. She shared videos of his building where he lived, now destroyed.

She said they still have not found his body.

“When I feel sad, I think of my brother and that he would want me to help others right now,” Ruiz said. “My brother was a special man.”

Eighteen-year-old Leander Guevara said he was on a routine call with his mom back home that day.

“Randomly, everything starts shaking and the signal goes off and all I hear is screaming,” Guevara explained.

He said their home in Caracas is safe. He says his mom runs a church in Venezuela and that she and others are handing out food and clothes to people who need it.

“They made arepas, they’re offering clothes, they actually used the church as a sleeping shelter,” Guevara said.

Still, he says rebuilding will take time.

“It’s actually pretty hard right now to rebuild everything in Venezuela,” he said. “It’s going to stay like this a long while. This is not just right now — next months, this is going to be hard. This is only the beginning.”

Ruiz said that while her brother is gone, he would have wanted her to carry his spirit forward by helping their loved ones back home.

“We know our community needs food, medicine,” she said. “I’ll use that energy, that emotion, and work for my community.”