Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team returning home after Venezuela quake deployment
CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela - The Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team is returning home after spending more than a week in Venezuela responding to two back‑to‑back earthquakes.
What we know:
The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5. quakes struck on June 24. Virginia Task Force 1 arrived on June 26, joining rescue crews from around the world.
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During the deployment, the team carried out several rescues, including freeing a mother and her infant from collapsed debris and later helping pull a father and son from another destroyed building.
On Friday, officials said the quakes have killed 2,645 people and injured more than 12,500, according to the Associated Press.
While the team was overseas, a fire destroyed heavy‑duty equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at its training facility in Lorton. The blaze damaged vehicles and tools the team relies on for disaster response.
READ MORE: Fairfax County rescue crews pull mother, infant and father, son from rubble after Venezuela quakes
VA‑TF1/USA‑01 is routinely dispatched to major disasters in the U.S. and abroad, including the 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, Hurricane Ian in Florida in 2022, the 2021 earthquake in Haiti and the 2020 wildfires in Oregon.
The Source: Information in this article comes from VA-TF1 / USA-01, the Associated Press and previous FOX 5 reporting.