Here’s the paraphrased version/first version with some cutting:

On June 24, 2026, at 6:04 p.m. local time, a pair of earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 struck northern Venezuela at Yaracuy Valley.

Though it’s not extremely uncommon for doublets to occur, two with such high magnitude is. In this case, the first earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.2, is most likely the foreshock.

There was almost no pause between the two earthquakes, so some are regarding it more as one disaster that led to the next—the first earthquake likely shook a part of the fault, which led to another one.

Both earthquakes’ seismic waves hardly dampened as they coursed along the Earth’s surface. There was much loose sediment, which made them more destructive, causing landslides where the earthquakes happened.

The plate boundary between the Caribbean and South American plates can be described as multiple strike-slip faults, which can cause incredibly strong shaking as they slide by each other. The Caribbean plate subducts the South American plate, causing the plate on top to shatter.

It is unclear which of the three faults—the Bonoco, El Guayabo, or the Moron Faults—caused the earthquake. Investigations on whether or not there will be aftershocks have yielded that there is only a 24% chance that they will be greater than a magnitude of 6.

Over time, there will be a drop-off of the number of aftershocks that will decrease, though a large earthquake can trigger aftershocks that happen in the next couple of years.

Here’s the other version:

Following the devastating pair of earthquakes that struck northern Venezuela on June 24, 2026, people are still looking for survivors or their relatives’ remains.

This pair of earthquakes with magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 resulted in at least 3,800 confirmed deaths, and people are still trying to find their deceased family members under the rubble of the earthquake.

Damaged buildings lie on top of many areas, meaning that possibly thousands of deaths may not be tallied; however, there is an increasing worry that the victims’ bodies will be treated without regard as the site is cleaned up.

Venezuela was already in a state of economic instability, and the earthquakes, which were made more destructive by loose sediment and being shallow, only worsened the situation. It also does not have any earthquake early-warning systems, unusual for an area that is highly prone to earthquakes due to multiple strike-slip faults.

Many families are sharing what their day before the earthquake looked like—what they were doing and what might have happened. There are also people criticizing the heavy machinery that is being used, not only because their relatives’ remains are there, but because they believe that there is a chance that their family members are still alive under all of the rubble.

Since it has been two weeks since the earthquakes struck, the chances of anyone trapped under the rubble still being alive are incredibly low, and the objective for most has shifted from rescuing people to recovering their remains. Their grief might influence them to hallucinate sounds or people that might not exist.

The number of rescue efforts have decreased over the past couple of days because there are likely few, if any, survivors left. Individuals, however, are still searching for their family members, digging through the hard concrete with their own hands.