‘I Surrendered to God’: Mother’s Faith Defies All Odds as Daughter Pulled Alive from Rubble After 32 Hours

Karina Blanco had already surrendered to God, preparing herself for the unimaginable—a life without her twelve-year-old daughter, Fabiana. The double earthquakes that struck Venezuela last Sunday had reduced her apartment building to rubble, and for 32 agonizing hours, she believed her daughter was dead. “I had surrendered to God asking for strength to begin a new life without Fabiana,” Karina told the BBC. But at that very moment of complete surrender, a neighbor approached her with a message that would shatter her grief and restore her hope: “Your daughter is alive.” Fabiana, who had been trapped under a door and blocks of concrete, had been crying out for help—and a nurse, also trapped in the rubble, heard her cries. After being rescued, the nurse insisted that rescuers return for the young girl, sparking a desperate mission that would become a symbol of resilience and divine intervention in the midst of tragedy.

The rescue was far from straightforward. Multiple crews tried and failed to locate Fabiana, but a local volunteer named Viktor refused to give up. In the middle of the night, with power outages plunging the area into darkness, Karina and Viktor rallied neighbors to point their motorcycle headlights at the collapsed building—guiding firefighters to Fabiana’s location. They chiseled a hole through the concrete, and when Fabiana emerged with a smile on her face, the moment became a viral beacon of hope for a grieving nation. “After so many hours of being shut in, I was filled with joy when I saw them,” Fabiana said. “I realized I was going to be rescued.” She credits her survival to a surreal calm and unwavering faith—a feeling she says defied her usual claustrophobia—and to eating ketchup and a packet of grated cheese that had landed near her in the debris. Of the building’s fifty residents, only three survived. “There is a great sadness outside of this house,” Karina said. “I feel so much pain when I think of my neighbors and my friends. But we will move on. What more can a mother want? My daughter is alive.”