CATIA LA MAR (Venezuela) — Hundreds of rescuers in Venezuela cheered and embraced Thursday after pulling a 43-year-old man alive from the ruins of a collapsed building eight days after deadly twin earthquakes, AFP journalists witnessed.

With the official death toll nearing 2,300 and huge numbers of people still missing, the rescue of security guard Hernan Gil after so long under the rubble was greeted as a miracle.

Gil was brought out on a stretcher after a painstaking operation to extract him from the collapsed seven-story building where he worked in Catia La Mar, a coastal area almost entirely razed to the ground in the June 24 catastrophe.

“This is truly a miracle,” Gil’s wife Gusbimar Gonzalez told AFP as rescuers worked to free him.

One of Latin America’s worst earthquake disasters crushed scores of residential apartment complexes, burying many in the rubble and triggering an international rescue operation.

Teams from seven countries — Venezuela, Chile, the United States, Portugal, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico — worked around the clock over three days to reach Gil.

They provided him with more than ten litres of water to keep him hydrated via a hose and installed a tube to provide him with oxygen.

During the final phase of the operation, about thirty people worked in the building’s parking area to clear away debris, while two rescuers dug a three-meter tunnel.

“It wasn’t easy to reach the exact spot where the victim was located,” Cristian Vera, the leader of the Chilean rescue team, told AFP.

However, while there have been a few astounding rescues—a three-year-old boy was found Tuesday, six days after the quake — hope has faded of finding many more survivors.

The focus is now shifting to survival for those who escaped the quakes.