Venezuelan earthquake kills wife and two children of Argentine footballer Lucas Trejo

Lucas Trejo, a 38-year-old Argentine footballer playing for Venezuelan second-division club Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira, lost his wife and two children when twin earthquakes devastated Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira on 24 June, the club confirmed on Sunday.

Trejo was at a team training camp in Caracas when the quakes struck and immediately returned to find the building where his wife, Yanina Maranella, and children, Aarón and Ainhoa, had been living reduced to rubble. According to CNN Español, he spent three days searching through the debris with his bare hands while teammates made public appeals for heavy machinery to assist the effort.

“What he found was a horrific scene,” his brother-in-law Ricardo Ardiles told Noticias Telemundo. “He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been.” Ardiles said Trejo initially held out hope after reports circulated of a child being found alive nearby, prompting him to search hospitals in case it was his son. “I don’t know where my family is. I’m looking for them, but I don’t know,” Trejo said at the time.

Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira confirmed the deaths in an Instagram post, writing: “Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira profoundly laments the irreparable loss of the wife and sons of our player Lucas Trejo. [The deaths] occurred on June 24th during the earthquake that shook the entire country.”

Trejo’s teammate Héctor Bello also suffered a devastating loss. Bello’s wife, Andrea, died shielding their baby daughter from the collapsing structure. “When everything crumbled, all she did was get on top of the baby,” the family’s relative David Barreto told Noticias Telemundo. In a letter posted to Instagram, Bello wrote: “Amidst all this pain, I know that if she had just a minute to say something to me, she’d tell me to protect you with my life — just as she did — and never to forget to buy you those bananas you love so much.”

More than 1,700 people have been confirmed dead since the two quakes struck, with rescue efforts now entering their fifth day. La Guaira remains the hardest-hit area, and the international community has mobilised aid to support Venezuela’s response to the disaster.