Officials said the number of injured remained at 16,740, unchanged for 11 days. The widening gap between a stable injury count and rising fatalities reflected bodies being recovered from collapsed structures rather than a reported new wave of earthquake-related injuries.
La Guaira, a densely built coastal state beside the Caribbean Sea, remained the hardest-hit area. Recovery teams were working through the ruins of residential buildings, while relatives continued searching for missing family members. The latest additions to the toll came particularly from ongoing operations there.
The two earthquakes measured magnitude 7.2 and 7.5. By July 17, monitoring agencies had recorded 1,331 aftershocks, prolonging uncertainty for residents and creating additional risk around weakened buildings. The supplied report did not identify the magnitude or location of every aftershock, but the cumulative figure illustrated the sustained seismic activity after the main shocks.
Government assessments listed 856 damaged buildings and 190 that had collapsed completely. Roads, bridges and other structures were also affected, extending the disaster beyond housing. Damage to transport routes can slow heavy equipment, medical support and the movement of displaced residents, though the evidence packet did not provide a full infrastructure cost.
The interim administration of President Delcy Rodríguez issued the updated figures in a statement. Those numbers represented the official count available on the event date and remained subject to change as clearing operations progressed. Large disaster tolls often develop over time because access, identification and reconciliation of local records cannot be completed immediately.
The recovery was therefore moving from initial rescue toward a longer phase of identification, structural assessment and support for survivors. Even after injury totals stopped changing, families without confirmed information remained in uncertainty, and damaged buildings could not necessarily be reoccupied safely.
The toll above 5,000 established the double earthquake as a national catastrophe, but the human impact extended further. More than 16,000 people had been hurt, hundreds of buildings were unsafe or gone, and essential links such as roads and bridges had sustained damage.
The official update did not include a final number of missing people, displaced residents or homes destroyed, so those measures should not be inferred. What it confirmed was that three weeks of recovery had not closed the accounting: debris operations were still increasing the recorded loss, especially in La Guaira.
Authorities had not declared the accounting complete.
