Hello everyone, I’m Marianna. I’m writing this because I feel helpless; my heart is breaking with worry, and as a mother, this is the only thing I can do from here in Hungary for my sons, Szabolcs and Péter. Whilst we were sleeping peacefully at home here in Hungary, they were fighting for survival in a nightmare that is almost impossible to comprehend.

On 24 June, at 18:04 local time, the earth literally split open in Venezuela. A horrific so-called ‘twin earthquake’ swept across the countryside. First, a 7.2-magnitude quake shook the houses, followed just 39 seconds later by an even more devastating 7.5-magnitude tremor. Szabolcs and Péter live – or rather, lived – in the coastal town of Caraballeda, right next to Caracas – at the epicentre of the disaster. Seventy per cent of the town was destroyed in a matter of seconds. Everything looks as though it had been the victim of a carpet bombing. According to physicists’ calculations, during the double earthquake that caused the disaster, net energy equivalent to nearly 240 Hiroshima atomic bombs was released into the Earth’s crust. My son and his family miraculously survived. But their lives, their present, everything they had moved to that country for, everything they had fought and worked for, was reduced to nothing in a single minute.

Right before their eyes, in their immediate neighbourhood, five multi-storey blocks of flats collapsed like a house of cards, burying everything beneath them. Szabolcs and his family found shelter in the garden of one of the blocks.

There was no electricity, no mobile signal, no news – just the blinding, suffocating cloud of dust and the rumbling of the rubble. But the worst was yet to come. As their building stood right on the seafront, the most terrifying threat emerged immediately after an earthquake of this magnitude: the tsunami.

Szabolcs and Péter then did something that required incredible courage – or madness dictated by the instinct for survival. They knew that if the tsunami came, they wouldn’t stand a chance without their car, documents and mobile phones. Not knowing whether there would be any more aftershocks, they returned in terror to the seventh floor of the building, which was growing dark, creaking and had become a life-threatening hazard. They rushed up to the flat to fetch their keys and papers, then, exposing themselves to the greatest danger, went down to the pitch-black underground car park to retrieve their car. They made it out and set off up into the mountains.

They set off towards the capital, Caracas, some 40 minutes’ drive away, but the journey was literally a living hell. As for the motorway, consisting of viaducts and mountain tunnels, they could only hope that they hadn’t collapsed. The roads had been split in two, with huge drops and craters forming. They could only move at a snail’s pace through the steep mountain dirt tracks, caught up in the fleeing crowd. Szabolcs and Péter had to watch from the car as the ruins blazed all around them, whilst from the dust and smoke came the howls and frenzied screams of people searching for their family members, children beneath the rubble. That collective death cry has rung in their ears ever since.

The usual 40-minute journey took five hours in this hell on earth. The only thing keeping my son and his family alive was the need to reach the Caracas airport network, because they were confident there would be mobile coverage there (which, in the end, there wasn’t, as the airport had also been severely damaged), and they’d be able to call us home before we woke up in Hungary and saw the news. They didn’t want us, as parents, to be in for a shock. Around 6 am Hungarian time, our phone rang. My son’s voice was trembling, but he reassured us before the horrific images had spread around the world. It was only then, upon hearing the news, that we really began to panic.

However, even upon arriving in Caracas, they couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Because of the collapsed buildings, which had become structurally unsafe, everyone there had also fled onto the streets. Szabolcs and his family spent their first night in the car. They are currently being given temporary shelter at the Hungarian House in Caracas, for which we will be eternally grateful to the local Hungarian community.

But on the coast, it seems they have lost everything. The house is in a life-threatening condition; the area has been evacuated and cordoned off. They cannot go back. There are no shops, supermarkets, pharmacies or doctors’ surgeries left. There is no water, no electricity, and mobile phone coverage is down. The airport has been closed due to damaged runways, and the underground is at a standstill. Everything is at a complete standstill. On top of that, there are now fears of infection in the area.

My son and his family are left with just the clothes on their backs, their personal documents and their car. They have to rebuild everything from scratch in a country that has collapsed. Our goal now is to raise 5,000 euros. This money is not for luxuries, but for sheer survival: safe food, clean drinking water, essential medicines, clothing and the vital logistical arrangements needed over the coming critical months.

I would be very grateful if, if you can, you could support my son and his family – even with the cost of a coffee or a lunch – so that they have the strength and the chance to get back on their feet from the ruins. And just as importantly: please share this link so that the news reaches as many people as possible, including friends and acquaintances abroad.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of my family too!

Marianna,

a concerned mother