Caracas and La Guaira affected by 4.6-magnitude tremor as death toll passes 1,700 and humanitarian crisis grows

A strong aftershock has rattled northern Venezuela, sending terrified residents racing on to the streets five days after the twin earthquakes that killed 1,719 people, left tens of thousands missing and triggered a growing humanitarian emergency.

The aftershock early on Monday – which the US Geological Survey measured at a magnitude of 4.6 – shook the capital, Caracas, and the devastated port city of La Guaira, where rescue crews are still hoping to pull as many survivors as possible from the rubble. Colombia’s geological survey put the aftershock’s magnitude at 5.1.

Volunteers provide counselling and funeral directors donate coffins after loss of at least 1,430 lives

The bodies turn up on motorcycles, in the backs of cars or the load beds of pickup trucks: victims of a natural disaster that has shaken an already fragile nation to its core.

“[Yesterday], the entire street was packed with people arriving with deceased relatives,” said Camila Rodríguez, a psychology student who is offering emotional support to grieving families at the Bello Monte mortuary in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.

Delcy Rodríguez says foreign rescue teams are arriving as anger grows at official response and limited resources

• Survivors tell of ‘brutal and fast’ Venezuela quake as hunt for survivors goes on

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has vowed to fight to save “as many people as possible” as the official death toll from the country’s worst earthquake in more than a century almost doubled, but frustration was growing at the perceived sluggishness of the government’s response.

Rodríguez’s brother, Jorge, the president of the national assembly, said on Friday that the official number of dead had risen to 920. Delcy Rodríguez had earlier said almost 3,000 people were injured. Speaking during a tour of La Guaira, the most devastated region, she said foreign search and rescue groups were starting to arrive.