The death toll from Venezuela's twin earthquakes has risen to 1,719, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said on Monday.
This is more than 250 above the 1,450 previously reported. Rodríguez said more than 5,000 people have been injured. There have been many aftershocks, but the initial quakes registered a magnitude of 7.2 and 7.5.
There are ongoing rescue operations but with each passing day, experts say that there is a smaller chance that victims will be pulled alive from the rubble.
"If there are still survivors under the rubble, every second counts for them now," Simone Walter, emergency relief coordinator at the aid organization Help, said on Monday. "From our experience of previous earthquakes, we know that only around 10% of all missing people can still be rescued alive - time is running out."
Search operations have been hampered by numerous aftershocks. On Monday morning, a magnitude-4.6 earthquake struck off the Venezuelan coast, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
