Lutao Cen was swimming off Margarita Island, where he has lived for four decades, when twin earthquakes measuring above magnitude 7 struck northern Venezuela within two minutes.
Only after returning to shore did he learn what had happened.
Messages flooded his WeChat feed. Friends in Caracas, Valencia and Maracay described buildings collapsing and streets filled with dust. Then came the news he had feared most.
A close friend in La Guaira, chairman of the local Chinese association, had been seriously injured after his shop collapsed. Three workers were killed. His 13-year-old daughter died beneath the rubble.
“I was devastated,” Cen said.
For generations, Chinese migrants built businesses in Venezuela. After the country’s deadliest earthquake in decades – which has killed nearly 1,500 people, injured more than 3,100 and displaced over 12,700 – they responded not as outsiders but as Venezuelans, drawing on community networks that stretched from Guangdong to Caracas to deliver aid when it was needed most.
