Abandoned rigs and crude oil in Lake Maracaibo on June 13. Image source Visual China
Venezuela's capital, Caracas, fell into darkness on July 22 due to a power outage. Image source Visual China
"How did we get to this point"
The painkillers and antibiotics in the hospital ran out, and Nero Vargas could only groan in pain. The 43-year-old security guard was shot in the neck and by the seventh day, his heart had failed.
In Maracaibo, death takes away life, but not humiliation. Nero's body lay on the basement floor for 3 days.
The economic collapse has hit Venezuela's second-largest city hard. Under the increasingly severe sanctions of the United States, life has gradually become a torment. According to the Washington Post, Maracaibo was once Venezuela's industrial engine and oil powerhouse, and now it is the center of collapse.
Temperatures still exceeded 32°C during the season, and on the afternoon of Nero's death, the weather was breathtakingly hot. The Vargas family could not afford the funeral, so the University Hospital of Maracaibo sent the body to an unair-conditioned morgue in the basement.
Three days later, Nero's wife, Ross Sangiris, finally borrowed enough money to buy a humble coffin and transport him home. The family held a vigil in the living room, and the mourners did not dare to look directly at the remains of the deceased. Rossangelis filled the crevices of the coffin with fillers, hoping to reduce the stench, but she failed.
Unable to afford a cemetery, they dug up the grave of Nero's long-dead brother so that Nero could rest in peace. Rossangiris wept in the cemetery, surrounded by broken coffins that had been desecrated by the stolen graves.
"I'm angry. Everything we experience in this city, in this country, makes us angry. She told The Washington Post, "A family member died, and we couldn't even bury him with dignity... How did we get to this point? ”
Maracaibo was once "a thriving city blessed by the Caribbean sun"
Known as the "Land of the Sun", Maracaibo was the first city in Venezuela to be illuminated with electricity. There is the first cinema in the country, and there are many Venezuelan "firsts". In 1914, oil companies began to extract crude oil on the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo, and everything changed.
What was once a small port that was not well received quickly developed into a metropolis of 2.6 million people. By 1950, the state of Suria, with Maracaibo as its capital, accounted for more than half of the country's GDP. Fueled by wealthy donors, its cultural life flourished, with 3 symphony orchestras and the largest museum of contemporary art in Latin America.
However, the Great Depression, which began in 2013, became a disaster, a combination of falling international oil prices and failed social policies. In 2008, when oil prices and production were high, Maracaibo's crude oil production was worth about $138 million a day, and now plummeted to around $8.5 million, according to the Associated Press. According to the New York Times, as many as 700,000 people have left Maracaibo in the past three years to join the army of refugees fleeing Venezuela.
According to the Washington Post, Venezuelan President Maduro is facing internal and external troubles, but still tries to protect the capital Caracas from the crisis.
The country's power grid and oil production are collapsing, and it has the world's largest proven oil reserves, but faces a severe gasoline shortage. Beginning in January this year, Maracaibo's electricity supply was limited to no more than 12 hours a day. Teams that buy gasoline can drain more than two kilometers, and the waiting time can be as long as two days. The Washington Post said that on the afternoon of October 11, 86 cars were discharged outside the gas station on local University Street. At a street market, a university professor peddled his T-shirt, jeans and a lamp in exchange for food.
Pipes and sinks in the restrooms of the Suria Museum of Contemporary Art were stolen, along with printers, computers, stereos and a truck. People couldn't get through to the museum's landline because the telephone line was missing. In this magnificent museum, the main hall has been closed, and the roof leaks causing water to accumulate on the ground. The number of employees was cut from 150 to 14, half of whom were unpaid interns. After the gardener fled abroad, more than a dozen palm trees outside the museum that had not been taken care of had died.
The Maracaibo Symphony Orchestra used to have 90 members, but now there are 11 remaining. "Our musicians are gone." One performer told The Washington Post, "They sell street art in the metro of Buenos Aires, in Lima and Quito." ”
Due to a lack of electricity and spare parts, most of the traffic lights in the city are not lit. This did not cause much chaos, as there was a massive loss of population, leaving few cars on the streets and no buses. Some communities have been reduced to "ghost towns" and 6 newspapers have closed their doors. The Washington Post said that in March, more than 500 supermarkets, electronics stores and hotels were looted, and many stores did not reopen. According to the Suria State Chamber of Commerce, hundreds of shops close every week.
"Maracaibo was once a brightly lit city, a city full of nightlife, a thriving city blessed by the Caribbean sun." Former Mayor of Maracaibo Evelyn de Rosales told The Washington Post, "Right now, it's a dead city, a land of zombies." Those of us who are left are the walking dead. ”
U.S. sanctions pour hot water on "third-degree burns"
José Moreno sailed to the center of Lake Maracaibo. The 31-year-old fisherman pointed to the rusty oil rig and told The Washington Post: "This is the cemetery of oil wells. ”
These rigs are used to extract crude oil from lake beds. Once the lifeblood of Venezuela's economy, Lake Maracaibo is now mostly dilapidated and unusable, crude oil and natural gas grunting out of the water, and Moreno's motorboats splashing and blackening the clothes of a Washington Post reporter.
"It's ruined." Moreno looked around the lake and said.
The prelude to decay was played at the beginning of this century. The Washington Post said then-President Chávez dissolved the union of venezuela's national oil company (PDVSA) and trained engineers, drillers and managers were replaced by "parachutes", but the latter was poorly run. When global oil prices plummeted in 2008, companies that supply, maintain and transport drilling equipment were nationalized.
As maduro's government sank deeper and deeper into the financial whirlpool, the oil rigs on Lake Maracaibo creaked with difficulty until they came to a complete halt. As the biggest buyer of these crude oils, the confrontation between the United States and Venezuela has become increasingly fierce, and Washington has been supporting the Venezuelan opposition that seeks to overthrow Maduro. In January, the U.S. government banned U.S. companies from buying Venezuelan oil. For an industry close to a tipping point, it's like pouring hot water on a third-degree burn.
The U.S. company Caracas Capital Markets, which focuses on Venezuela's oil sector, shows that Suria produced 1.55 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2001 and had fallen to 250,000 barrels in 2018. In 2002, there were 5,000 oil wells operating day and night on Lake Maracaibo, and fewer than 400 are still in operation today.
In August, the U.S. government expanded the embargo by freezing all assets and fruits of the U.S. government and officials and prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from conducting any transactions with the government, the central bank, or state-owned oil companies.
The company that Jamie Acosta inaugurated went out of business in July because PDVSA couldn't pay on contract. His wife and children had to go to Colombia to earn a living. "Sanctions only make things worse." He told The Washington Post.
The high-rise buildings in Maracaibo are gradually becoming empty, and in the shadow of these high-rise buildings are shantytowns. In recent months, 400 families, representing a third of the shantytown population, have left.
After a 14-hour night shift security job, Nero was hit in the neck by a stray bullet on his way home, just one intersection away from home.
Violence is not the only killer. Shortages of electricity and running water not only inconvenience life, but also potentially dangerous. People struggle to control scabies outbreaks, but they often don't have water and soap to bathe their children. One activist told The Washington Post that 16 people in the community this year died from diseases caused or worsened by unreliable electricity, lack of clean water and persistent heat. (Author: Yuan Ye)