Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez declares a state of emergency after two major earthquakes shook the capital Caracas just seconds apart - the first a magnitude 7.2 and the second 7.5.
Rescue crews are searching the rubble of collapsed multi-storey buildings for survivors and Venezuela's main international airport has been closed due to serious damage from the earthquakes.
Rodríguez offers her condolences without specifying how many people have died while the US Geological Survey warns of high casualties and extensive damage, saying the "disaster is likely widespread"
Venezuela was celebrating a national holiday and many people would have been at home when the quakes struck at 18:04 local time (23:04 BST)
The quakes hit an area west of Caracas, and could be felt throughout the country and as far away as Bogota, Colombia.
What caused the earthquakes?
Venezuela lies in a seismically active zone where two tectonic plates, the Caribbean and the South American, meet.
According to the US Geological Survey, the second and larger of the two quakes today occurred as a result of "shallow strike-slip faulting" near the boundary of these plates.
This is when faults, or fractures between the plates, move horizontally. An earthquake is caused when this movement happens quickly.
"While commonly plotted as points on maps, earthquakes of this size are more appropriately described as slip over a larger fault area," USGS reports.
The pair of quakes today "likely indicates a complex, rupture interaction process", the organisation says.
Aftershocks, including "some potentially with strong shaking" are still possible, it adds.
Trump says there is a 'devastating number of deaths.
"The two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths," US President Donald Trump has written in a post on Truth Social.
"The U.S.A. stands ready, willing, and able to help!"
Trump says he has "instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly.
"We will be there for our new and great friends. Early reports are not good!!!" There have so far been no official public reports on the number of casualties.
