After acting as scavenger species, attempting to profit from the deaths of thousands of people, certain journalists and content creators have conveniently mutated into seemingly pure environmentalists, making their current major concern the disposal of debris left by the double earthquake of July 24.Ironically, they certainly apply practices linked to ecology, especially concerning opinion trends and narratives. They launch one, exploit it to the maximum, and when only waste remains, they recycle it for reuse.The central idea is always the same: to cause alarm, anguish, consternation, and, above all, waves of anger directed at authorities because their ultimate goal is political: to destabilize, undermine, and overthrow the government (or the “regime,” as they call it to deny its legitimacy).Managing the enormous quantity of debris is one of the many complex problems generated by the tragedy, particularly in La Guaira, a thin coastal strip located between the northern face of the imposing Waraira Repano [or Avila Mountain] and the no less powerful Caribbean Sea. The media and social media machinery has decided to bring this problem to the forefront, adopting the guise of people concerned about coastal and marine ecosystems.Why not believe in their good intentions, many readers will rightly ask. There are several reasonsThe first is that they have begun addressing this issue by spreading fake news. We are not talking about an isolated fake news item, but many, issued with unsurprising synchronicity until they reach the communications orgasm of our time: going viral. Anyone guided by this climate of manipulated information would have formed the idea that an irresponsible government has been dumping tons of waste into the sea.The second reason not to give this narrative the benefit of the doubt is that it emerges immediately after others aimed at the same goal: causing anxiety, annoyance, and rejection. First, the narrative was established that there was no timely response, going so far as to claim that access to private or third-country aid was being denied; then it was said that most of the collapsed buildings belonged to the Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela; later, it was asserted that fatalities were being buried in mass graves. All these stories were false, malicious, and ill-intentioned, focused on blaming authorities for countless failures, errors, incompetence, and even deplorable cruelties.The third reason relates to how this narrative irresponsibly overlooks the dimension of human, scientific, and technical challenges involved in what is merely one facet of the catastrophe: debris management.A classic: Negative comparison with other countriesThe opinion trend regarding debris disposal resorts to an already classic argument of this “certain journalism” and the influencers we are talking about. It involves negative comparisons with other countries. The capacity and speed of response of these nations are magnified to accuse, by contrast, the Venezuelan government of ineptitude and slowness. For example, in recent days, comparisons with Japan have abounded, a country that suffered, in March 2011, the terrifying conjunction of a super-earthquake with a tsunami and a nuclear accident.To begin with, it is absurd to compare Japan, a nation with high scientific-technological development and extensive history regarding major earthquakes, with a country like Venezuela, which is obviously less developed and has much less experience in the matter. However, beyond that out-of-context comparison, the real facts debunk certain myths.In late April 2011, a month after that terrible disaster, the Chilean newspaper La Tercera reported that, according to official information from Japanese authorities, debris removal would take at least three years.“The greatest difficulty for authorities in the affected provinces lies in finding places to temporarily store the waste currently piled up along tens of kilometers on the coasts of Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate,” the journalistic dispatch noted. “In Iwate province, there are about six million tons of debris, and so far, they have only been able to secure 40% of the land needed to store it, according to Kyodo.”For the most affected province, Miyagi, environmental authorities warned that they needed four million square meters of land to incinerate, recycle, and dispose of 16 million tons of debris. Since raw figures are not fully understood, the required area was equivalent to about 400 football fields combined.Given the magnitudes indicated, the three-year timeframe seemed more than reasonable. Nevertheless, the media machinery likes to make people believe that the Japanese resolved the issue in a matter of weeks. They use this fantasy to generate disproportionate and absurd expectations, and to reinforce their narratives about the Venezuelan government’s ineptitude.Another example? Let’s take one from the favorite country of the rogue press: the US. The disposal of debris from the World Trade Center collapse took around ten months. Materials were moved by barges across the Hudson River to be deposited in a Staten Island landfill called Fresh Kills, which had been closed a few months before the tragedy and had to be reopened.(A digression: Fresh Kills, in a literal English translation, means fresh deaths or recent murders, but interpreters familiar with the context explain that the name is of Dutch origin, so it should be translated as fresh stream or channel. The fact is that it was New York’s sanitary landfill, the largest open-air dump on the planet until it was closed after decades of protests from neighboring communities. It is now in a slow process of becoming a large park, expected to open in 2035.)An objective study of the respective cases leads to the conclusion that the management of debris and waste from both 9/11 and Japan’s triple catastrophe ended up being part of the respective disasters.In New York, thousands of workers, including public officials, volunteers, and undocumented laborers, have suffered illnesses derived from the toxicity of the ruins of this complex, built with materials and technologies prevalent between 1966 and 1973.On the other hand, although a publicized effort was made to identify human remains found among the debris, it is estimated that only about 300 people could be recognized, from approximately 22,000 body parts mixed with the rubble.In Japan’s case, it is known that due to damage to the Fukushima nuclear plant reactors, an unquantifiable amount of radioactive wastewater has been discharged into the sea since 2011. This contamination also extends to solid debris that came into contact with these liquids. The situation was so severe that even other Japanese provinces (prefectures) did not want to receive this debris.The geographical reality of La GuairaThose who rush to label debris movement as an environmental crime deliberately ignore the tremendous limitations of the affected region. People unfamiliar with the geographical context might believe it is a matter of mere political will or lack thereof. However, anyone who has ever traveled through this territory will have at least a slight notion that it is extremely narrow. According to easily verifiable data, the widest areas of the entire state are found in Catia La Mar (to the west) and Naiguatá (to the east), where relatively flat terrain barely reaches two kilometers between the seashore and the hillside. Adding to the difficulty, Catia La Mar is precisely one of the sectors most affected by the earthquakes.The sharp critics of debris disposal in temporary spaces near the shore overlook this, which is not a minor detail but a core element. What are the options? Are they proposing to load trucks and transport the debris up to Caracas?Again, for those unfamiliar with the geographical reality, it is worth explaining that there is an altitude difference of approximately 800 meters between the the La Guaira coast and the Venezuelan capital. How much additional time would it take to transport the debris, and at what cost? Furthermore, once in Caracas, what would be the final destination of these materials?One does not need to be a fortune-teller to predict that if this were to begin, new pseudo-ecological narratives would emerge, deeming it a serious environmental crime and an attack on the health of the capital’s inhabitants.As for possible spaces within the same state but away from the coast, almost all are part of the mountain, are urbanized areas, or lie along the banks of the many rivers and streams that originate in the hills and cross the territory—the same currents that reclaimed their channels in 1999 and caused the equally terrible Vargas Tragedy.However, the authorities’ task is not limited to finding land for debris disposal. It is also urgent to find appropriate land to build housing for affected families who intend to remain in La Guaira.Venezuelan Acting President Rodriguez Visits El Junquito To Assess Earthquake Recovery EffortsA minimum of responsibility in journalistic and social media treatment would recommend informing the public of all these aspects that condition the official response on the matter. However, it is well known that balanced views do not serve the creators of apocalyptic and depressing opinion matrices. On the contrary, they need to twist facts, distort them, remove context, and omit data to produce the pernicious effect they aim to establish as post-truth. That is what they are doing. (La IguanaTV)Translation: Orinoco TribuneOT/JRE/