Two weeks after losing her home and her hair salon, Alejandra went back to work. Not from a rebuilt premises, but from a tent set up in Playa Verde, in Catia La Mar, the epicenter of the second earthquake that struck La Guaira in June. There, she put together a small manicure and pedicure stand to serve her neighbors. “I set up my tent to offer my services to the community. With work we can recover, and we can also help the community in this very difficult moment,” she says.
Alejandra offers her services at low prices and, when she can, for free. A few meters away, her cousin Jhonny Moisés Acosta provides physiotherapy on a pay-what-you-can basis. Both were able to set up their workstations thanks to donations of tables, lights, supplies, a treatment bed and two tents.
Alejandra’s and her cousin’s tent make up a small snapshot of a much larger problem. Two months after the twin earthquakes, La Guaira is trying to restart an economy that is still operating well below capacity. Tourism has all but ground to a halt, thousands of businesses are still closed, and many of those that have reopened are doing so by catering to needs created by the emergency.
On July 23, Governor Alejandro Terán reported that an initial census found that only 1,752 businesses were operating, out of nearly 7,000 before the earthquake. The projections are equally grim: economist Asdrúbal Oliveros estimates that economic activity could contract by between 55% and 70% in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.
The scale of the disaster is hard to comprehend: direct damage in La Guaira is estimated at $4.98 billion, according to the World Bank. Behind those figures are people like Alejandra, trying to get back to work and rebuild their livelihoods.
A similar scene is playing out at El Mosquero Market in Maiquetía. The sound of knives striking cutting boards, water running across the floor, vendors calling out offers of fresh fish and seafood, and cats weaving between crates all lend the market an air of normality. But a glance at the empty stalls is enough to see that things are anything but normal.
Business resumed just two weeks after the earthquakes. Six stalls, however, never reopened. “The people who worked there sadly died. Some lived in the OPPPE housing blocks that collapsed,” says Daniel Arvel, one of the market workers, referring to apartment complexes built by a government agency during Hugo Chávez’s presidency.
Those who did return are carrying losses of their own. Some lost their homes; others lost relatives or friends. Yet every morning they come back to clean, cut, weigh and sell. The market is operating again, but with fewer workers and far fewer customers.
A survey by the La Guaira Chamber of Commerce found that revenues across the productive sector fell by 80% after the earthquakes. Traders say sales have dropped sharply. The economic impact of the disaster was compounded by another blow: false rumors on social media claiming that the fish was contaminated. Many customers stopped buying.
The result is a paradox repeated across La Guaira: businesses can reopen long before the economy that sustained them recovers. Stalls are stocked with goods but have no customers; workers have returned to their jobs but still have no homes; and some establishments are surviving thanks to an emergency that, one day, will have to come to an end.
A new clientele
For decades, La Guaira’s economy moved to the rhythm of the tourists who streamed down from Caracas on weekends. More than 15,000 people worked in tourism-related activities, but after the earthquakes, that flow all but disappeared. With beaches in the hardest-hit areas, such as Macuto and Caraballeda, still subject to restrictions, businesses that m
At Los Mou, an empanada shop, that transformation plays out right across the counter. Dozens of police officers stop by every day as they work on traffic control and the demolition of damaged buildings. Its owner, Henry Jiménez, kept the shop closed for five weeks. When he finally raised the shutter, he did so with a simple goal in mind: letting customers know the business was still there. “We stayed open so customers could see that Los Mou is back,” he says.
He now works with his sister and sells far less than before. But the business found a new source of demand amid the emergency. “The customers now are officials, rescuers, and relatives still searching for their people. Sales have dropped, but there are still people who need these services,” he explains.
A few miles away, opposite the OPPPE housing blocks in Caraballeda, one of the areas hardest hit by the disaster, Abel Salcedo reopened his convenience store just 15 days after the earthquake. The tremors destroyed much of his inventory. “Every bottle of liquor shattered.”
Today, police officers, soldiers and rescue workers make up a large share of his customers. Their presence has even had an unexpected side effect: it has helped protect the few businesses that remain open. “That has helped against looting. The military and police in the area watch over the business because it’s useful for them to have the store operating,” he says.
But for Salcedo, the deepest loss was another one: “Most of our customers lived in the OPPPEs; almost all collapsed, so we lost customers we used to see every day.”
The remark captures how the earthquake transformed more than just buildings and businesses. It also changed the people who sustained the everyday economy of these neighborhoods. Shopkeepers lost more than inventory; they lost neighbors, customers and part of the community that gave meaning to their businesses.
In Camurí Chico, Pollos Jack decided to reopen almost immediately. The day after the earthquake, staff found damaged refrigerators and food that was at risk of spoiling. They chose to distribute it among those affected. Since then, the restaurant has kept its doors open for the people arriving in the area to take part in rescue and recovery efforts.
“Our work has been serving the community. From the start, there have been many people working on earthquake-related tasks, and it was for them that we opened every day,” explains one of its workers.
In La Guaira, the economy is still moving, but around a reality no one wishes would last: a city where tourists have been temporarily replaced by the people who came to deal with the aftermath of the disaster.
Amid ruins and repairs
On Caraballeda’s Avenida La Playa, one business is operating quite literally amid the rubble. Every building around it collapsed. Café Alejandrina, however, survived. It sustained moderate damage inside, but its structure remained standing.
Its owner, Carlos Franco, has lived and worked in La Guaira for 56 years. Over the decades, he turned a small space in the Costa del Sol shopping center into a well-known business, complete with three separate sections and two work shifts. Years later, he opened a second, larger venue with a terrace, distinct dining areas and opening hours that stretched from breakfast through the early hours of the morning. “We had live music; we served everything from breakfast to nighttime drinks with live music,” he recalls.
Of his 65 employees, Franco estimates that only about 15 will be able to return. Many lost their homes, relatives or friends. He himself lost his house. Even so, he is pressing ahead with repairs and hopes to reopen in about 20 days.
The contraction is not unique to his business. A survey by the La Guaira Chamber of Commerce found that 84% of businesses along the coast cannot guarantee the preservation of jobs, while more than 30% anticipate layoffs will be unavoidable.
Rebuilding Café Alejandrina involves far more than repairing walls and replacing equipment. It also means restoring the area around it. Franco says he has had positive discussions with the La Guaira state government, although there has so far been little concrete progress in recovering nearby public spaces. “These are difficult times, and right now there are other priorities.”
The regional government has pledged funding to help businesses recover. Governor José Alejandro Terán announced a $20.5 million package for 2,300 formal businesses, entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises in La Guaira as part of the Plan Venezuela Renace (Venezuela Rises Again Plan). He has also promised that beach tourism infrastructure will be rebuilt and upgraded. But local business owners know all too well that there is often a gap between announcements and reopening.
The available data show that the economic recovery will be gradual. José Gregorio Rodríguez, president of Consecomercio, says that more than 30% of economic activity has already been restored. Of roughly 600 businesses surveyed, 60% suffered some level of damage, while 16 were completely destroyed. Those figures do not include places such as the Costa del Sol shopping center, which had more than 60 active businesses when the earthquake struck and whose structure has been classified as high-risk and potentially slated for demolition.
At the La Guaira Community Market, that recovery is taking place beneath humanitarian tents. The earthquake damaged the market, and a subsequent fire destroyed much of the traders’ equipment. José Graterol now sells cold cuts from one of the makeshift stalls, but estimates it will take years to rebuild his business.
“A deli refrigerator costs $7,500. A good slicer costs $2,500. That’s why reactivating the economy quickly is so important, because the recovery itself will take a very long time. Today we work with what we can so tomorrow we can expand our capacity again,” he explains.
A survey by Ecosistema illustrates the scale of the challenge: the businesses surveyed report operating at just 40% of capacity on average, while more than 70% are running at less than half their normal levels.
Across from Café Alejandrina, on an avenue where almost everything was destroyed, only one other business is open: an auto locksmith’s shop run by Hover Cardona. Born in Pereira, Colombia, Cardona has lived in La Guaira for more than 30 years. He is also familiar with the fragility of cities: his hometown was struck by a devastating earthquake on August 10. “Wherever you are, something can happen. And whatever situation we’re in, it’s important to keep going, open your doors and get your business working again,” he says.
In a city where so many doors were suddenly forced shut, reopening is about more than rebuilding livelihoods. That is why Alejandra’s tents, the reopened stalls at El Mosquero and the shops struggling to raise their shutters again are not yet signs of an economic recovery. They are something more tentative: signs that, even after losing almost everything, there are still people willing to bet on La Guaira’s comeback.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition
