Venezuela earthquake latest news: Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Wednesday (June 25) announced a state of emergency after Caracas was hit by two earthquakes 39 seconds apart, saying at least 32 people were killed and 700 were injured.The back-to-back quakes flattened buildings and triggered a major rescue operation as officials warned the disaster could become one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters.A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit about 160 km west of Caracas late on Wednesday night, followed 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 tremor in what the US Geological Survey (USGS) described as a seismic doublet. The stronger quake was the largest to strike Venezuela or just off its coast since 1900, according to the USGS. The agency’s preliminary death toll estimate ranges from 10,000 to 100,000.US President Donald Trump extended support, saying the US was ready, willing and able to help with relief.“The two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths,” Trump said.For beleaguered Venezuela, the earthquakes are the latest blow since US forces deposed and captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Here is what to know.What we know about the two earthquakesThe magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck about 24 km from San Felipe in Yaracuy state, before a stronger magnitude 7.5 quake hit 39 seconds later near Morón in neighbouring Carabobo state, about 168 km west of Caracas, according to the USGS.Story continues below this adThe magnitude 7.7 San Narciso earthquake in 1900, the previous strongest recorded event, killed at least 21 people and devastated parts of Caracas.The shocks were felt as far away as neighbouring Colombia, with residents in the capital, Bogotá, reporting feeling the tremors.This Word Means | Magnitude of an earthquakeRodríguez said the worst-affected areas included Caracas and the north-central states of Miranda, La Guaira, Aragua, Carabobo and Falcón.Despite the widespread damage, Venezuela’s oil infrastructure did not appear to be affected by the quakes, according to a Reuters report.Story continues below this adVenezuela sits on the boundary between the Caribbean and South American tectonic plates, making it one of the most seismically active regions in northern South America.According to the USGS, the stronger magnitude 7.5 earthquake resulted from shallow strike-slip faulting near the boundary between the two plates, where rocks move horizontally along a fault.Earthquakes often occur in sequences. The USGS classified the magnitude 7.2 earthquake as a foreshock, or a smaller earthquake that occurs before a larger one, and the magnitude 7.5 event as the mainshock, the largest earthquake in a sequence. The agency said the sequence “likely indicates a complex rupture interaction process” that formed a seismic doublet.NewsletterFollow our daily newsletter so you never miss anything important. On Wednesday, we answer readers' questions.SubscribeThe USGS also noted that earthquakes of this size should not be viewed as a single point on a map, but as the rupture of a much larger section of fault. It warned that aftershocks, including some capable of producing strong shaking, remain possible.So why were the earthquakes so destructive?Story continues below this adUnlike aftershocks, which are smaller earthquakes that follow a mainshock, doublet earthquakes involve two earthquakes of comparable magnitude occurring in rapid succession. They are relatively uncommon, making the Venezuela sequence unusual. The USGS described the Venezuela sequence as a seismic doublet.Research on earthquake doublets has shown that they can be especially destructive because they prolong strong ground shaking. A 2016 study in Nature Geoscience analysing Pakistan’s 1997 Harnai earthquake found that a second major shock, which struck 19 seconds after the first, doubled both the duration of ground shaking and the area affected by the strongest shaking.Thus, buildings already weakened by the first earthquake remain exposed to another major shock almost immediately, increasing the risk of collapse and complicating rescue efforts.