Deivi Delfín is 15 and he, together with his 17‑year‑old brother Winder, survived Venezuela’s twin earthquakes that struck La Guaira on 24 June. His mother and two other relatives were buried beneath the collapsed 12‑storey building, while the siblings escaped only after a week of searching, hunger and fear.
With no other way to support them, Deivid—Deivi’s dad—moved the boys to Cali, Colombia, where he works. They began life in a modest apartment, hoping that hope and new work would replace the nightmare they fled.
Three days later, a new quake rattled the city. The magnitude‑7.4 tremor broke roofs, smashed traffic lights and sent rubble flowing into streets. In the chaos the brothers heard the same noise that told them the old world had crumbled again.
They dove into the rubble with only a phone and a flashlight, crawling between concrete slabs that had become cages. Their small bodies squeezed through zones where sound could no longer travel. One by one, they peeled away layers of dust to find odd reminders of home: a missing Bible, a parent’s torn cardigan, a boy’s holster of sneakers.
Winder was the first to spot his mother’s body beneath a slab. He kept his hand on a plastic bag that had her dyed hair—a memory they had carried into the rubble. When his little brother’s hand finally fell into his father’s bare grasp, the grief flowed; the father collapsed on the ground.
The brothers did not give up. Over weeks they helped fire‑fighters dig, signaled where the strongest injuries had occurred, and organized group searches. Their youngest brother, Moissés, who had not yet been seen of all, was found holding his mother’s hand, forever anchoring the boys’ future.
After the earthquake, they moved in with their father in a neighbourhood of low‑rise houses. Although reliefs and aid arrived, the trauma of loss stayed. Yet, their story shows the tenacity of youth: the power to rebuild, to search, to never accept being a victim. The boy’s voice in the BBC interview echoes: “I don’t feel like a child anymore, but I keep dreaming of a safer world.”
Today, the story of Deivi and Winder is a reminder that a natural disaster does not only break buildings: it breaks families, but it can also ignite the human will to rise again. Their journey tells us that heroes can be found in the most unexpected places—teenagers who have already braved multiple quakes and learn to keep climbing, even when the ground shakes.
