"He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been." That's how Ricardo Ardiles, Lucas Trejo's brother-in-law, described what the Argentine footballer found when he rushed back to his beachfront home in La Guaira after Venezuela's twin earthquakes last week.
Trejo, 38, plays for Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira in Venezuela's second division. He was at a team training camp in Caracas when two major earthquakes struck just 39 seconds apart — what the US Geological Survey classified as a rare seismic "doublet" — the strongest to hit Venezuela in more than a century. He drove the 18 miles north to La Guaira immediately. What he found was gone.
For three days he combed through rubble, looking for his wife Yanina and their children Aarón and Ainhoa. Friends and teammates filmed a video pleading for heavy machinery. "Right now we only have one machine, but it's not enough," said Metropolitanos F.C. player Robert Garcés in the appeal.
The search ended on Sunday
Club Sport Marítimo La Guaira confirmed the deaths on social media, posting a family photo — Trejo with one hand on his daughter's shoulder, the other around his wife — and a message that cut through everything: "Lucas, you are not alone. Your family at Maritime La Guaira is with you."
Trejo's brother-in-law said he was "emotionally overwhelmed." There's nothing else to say about that.
He isn't the only footballer the disaster has taken from. Yimvert Berroteran, 18, who played at the U-17 World Cup in Doha just months ago and had broken into the U-20 national team, was among the more than 1,400 confirmed dead. Young players Víctor Palacios and Razan Sijaa also lost their lives, according to the Venezuelan Football Federation. Héctor Bello, another player, announced on social media that his partner died shielding their toddler daughter from the collapse.
"I'll make sure to remind our baby girl how wonderful you were and how much you loved her," Bello wrote.
The 72-hour survival window — the most critical period for rescue operations — has now passed. Thousands remain missing across Venezuela.
