Argentine soccer player Lucas Trejo is mourning an unimaginable loss after his wife and two young children were found dead following the devastating twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela last week.
Trejo, a defender for second-division club Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira, spent nearly three days searching through the rubble before rescue crews recovered the bodies of his wife, Yanina Maranella, and their children, Aaron and Ainhoa, according to CNN.
The club confirmed the heartbreaking news on Sunday.
“Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira deeply mourns the irreparable loss of our player’s wife and children,” the organization wrote in a statement shared on Instagram.
“Peace to their souls and comfort for Lucas and all his loved ones,” the club added in a separate post on X.
Trejo, 38, was attending a training camp with his team in Caracas when the powerful magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes struck Wednesday evening. He immediately returned to his home in Playa Grande, in Venezuela’s coastal La Guaira state, only to find his family’s apartment building had collapsed.
“He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been,” Trejo’s brother-in-law, Ricardo Ardiles, told CNN en Español. “It was a horrific scene.”
In the hours after the disaster, Trejo pleaded on social media for information about his family.
“Our building in Playa Grande collapsed. I don’t know anything about my family,” he wrote. “Please pray for them and share this message in case someone saw them. I want to believe they weren’t there.”
According to multiple reports, Trejo joined relatives, teammates, volunteers and emergency crews in digging through the debris with his own hands as hope slowly faded. After roughly 74 hours of searching, rescue workers confirmed the family’s deaths.
The tragedy has become one of the most heartbreaking personal stories to emerge from what is now one of Venezuela’s deadliest natural disasters in decades.
Rescue effort continues
Authorities say nearly 1,500 people have been killed, thousands more have been injured, and tens of thousands remain unaccounted for as rescue operations continue around the clock in the hardest-hit regions.
Despite the staggering destruction, rescue teams continue to uncover survivors days after the earthquakes.
Over the weekend, members of Virginia Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 1 pulled a mother and her 9-month-old baby alive from the wreckage of a collapsed building. Videos released by the task force and the U.S. State Department showed rescuers carrying the pair to safety as nearby residents erupted in applause. The infant could be heard crying while wrapped in a blue blanket.
Another survivor, a 21-year-old man trapped beneath rubble for more than 100 hours, was rescued Monday in one of the disaster’s most dramatic recoveries, offering another sign that search crews continue racing against time.
U.S. joins the international relief effort
The United States has become one of the largest international contributors to the humanitarian response.
American search-and-rescue specialists, including Virginia Task Force 1, have been deployed alongside teams from dozens of countries. According to international relief officials, more than 3,600 rescue personnel, hundreds of search dogs, and thousands of tons of emergency supplies have arrived to assist with rescue and recovery efforts.
The U.S. has also pledged more than $300 million in humanitarian assistance and deployed military personnel to help restore operations at the heavily damaged Port of La Guaira, a critical hub for delivering food, medical supplies, and other emergency aid.
READ NEXT: Supreme Court Issues Ruling In Mail-In Ballot Case
