Amid a disaster measured in the thousands, one small rescue has given Venezuela a moment of hope.

Six days in the rubble

Kleiber Morán, two years old, was pulled alive from the wreckage of a collapsed home in Caracas six days after the earthquake, his family and rescuers told the BBC, in an account carried by Yahoo News. A Jordanian search-and-rescue team spent roughly three hours freeing him in an operation officials described as extremely difficult, ABC News reported. At the hospital, doctors found scratches on his arms and legs but no broken bones. He arrived in shock, his aunt said, and by the next day had begun to stabilize.

A family's wait

The boy's parents — his mother, Ana Luz, and his father, Carlos — remain among the missing. His aunt, Andreína Sarmiento, 23, has stayed at his bedside. "It hurts because I can't find my sister," she told the BBC, describing how she and Ana Luz had spoken by video call every day. Asked about the boy's future, she said she would care for him "with a mother's warmth until my sister appears, which is what we long for," adding, softly, "He is only two years old and I am not a mother."

Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, pointed to the rescue as a rare bright moment, calling it "a source of hope for our people."

The scale of the disaster

The twin quakes that struck northwestern Venezuela on June 24 — measured at magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 — have killed more than 1,700 people, injured thousands and displaced tens of thousands, according to the United Nations, which said 1.8 million people need assistance, among them hundreds of thousands of children. Hundreds of aftershocks have followed, some striking during rescue operations.

More than 2,000 rescue workers from more than two dozen countries have joined the effort, with dozens of search teams and scores of dogs combing the debris. Among them is an urban search-and-rescue team from Los Angeles County, which the Herald reported deployed to the disaster zone in the days after the quakes.

A ward of survivors

Kleiber is now recovering alongside other children who lived through the earthquakes, his aunt at his side. The UN has cautioned that Venezuela's recovery will be long — debris to clear, ground to survey, families to resettle. But in one hospital ward in Caracas, a two-year-old is alive, and someone who loves him is not leaving.