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“The 1999 mudslide catastrophe in Vargas State, Venezuela was wideley regarded as the country’s worst modern day disaster, my first hand experience was one watershed moment.
Until last week, 24th of June 2024 when two powerful earthquakes of 7,2, followed immediately by an even more destructive 7,5 magnitude quake.
Back in the year 2000 and the following years, the government launched emergency housing programs, with limited success leading  subsequently to more construction of “barrios”, into the hills, where there is a higher level of of risk. It was for this housing need that more hills were deforested and damaged leading to more debris flow and land slides. Did you notice that the informal barrios are not mentioned in the regimes official reports on the earthquake, although 60% of the people in Vargas and Caracas live exactly there. Back at the time we documented and designed an urban strategy with the squatter community of Torre David that can be read today as an uncomfortable but crucial precedent for thinking about emergency occupation of structurally sound, yet formally “empty” buildings after an earthquake.
But Torre David in Caracas itself was damaged in a previous earthquake and was evacuated, leading to more displaced families.Provided that robust structures in the city exist and that the people not only in the formal city but also in the informal barrios will be accounted for when it comes to rescue efforts and  humanitarian assistance, it will be crucial that the illegitimate autocratic government will support the organised communities  accessing international aid arriving in Venezuela, putting the peoples live ahead of its occupation of staying in power. The success of the organisation of aid and the mobilisation of state controlled efficient campaigns to rescue, secure and recosntruct will show what example this stresstest will surface. The critical question is: how many “Torre Davids” exist in Caracas today—unfinished, underused or other vacant buildings whose structural integrity is intact—and could be rapidly tested and transformed into temporary shelters, clinics or community hubs? But the uncomfortable truth is there is no more Torre David left standing, ready for communities to move in quickly and at a low cost to reorganise themselves within what already exists, time is up”.

Hubert Klumpner



Editors Note: "Phoenix Rising, visions for rebuilding Ukraine”, links to Lucy Bullivant PhD Hon FRIBA and Arthur Kay’s initiative at the Building Center in London, 2025-26

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