A Florida woman is recounting the moment she heard from her mother, who had gone through the strong earthquakes in Venezuela last Wednesday. Sylvia Marmo said she received a frantic voice memo from her mother, Isabel Gonzalez, who lives in Caracas, as the ground began to shake in the South Americ an country. Gonzalez was telling her she was running for her life as the wall of her home began crumbling around her. Marmo, thousands of miles away, could only watch, wait, and continue calling her mother. “It was absolutely a scary moment. I started looking on social media, and nobody is posting anything about it. And the media in Venezuela is tricky,” said Marmo. Speaking in Spanish, Gonzalez said she covered her head as parts of her house began falling around her. “While I was running from the living room to the parking lot, I started hearing so many noises. I covered my head while running, and the noises I was hearing were all parts of the house falling,” she said. She said the true terror came as she tried to flee. “The ground was shaking so loud. The earthquake was so strong. Then came the screams of the people. I opened the door, and that’s when the second earthquake hit.” Two powerful earthquakes struck the country’s northern coast on Wednesday. A 7.2 magnitude hit first, followed by a magnitude 7.5 just seconds later. After hours of gut-wrenching silence, Marmo said she finally heard back from her mother. Gonzalez said the family home in El Paraiso, Caracas, is in severe condition. “A big part of the front of the house, there’s a large crack where you can see exposed bricks. Above the house, there’s a statue of a dragon. The tail of that dragon is nearly going to fall,” said Gonzalez. Out of fear of more aftershocks, including a recent one that rocked on Monday, Gonzalez has since started sleeping on the downstairs couch. “I haven’t come upstairs yet, to where my room is, out of fear,” said Gonzalez. Both women say the devastation seen in the aftermath of the quake is shocking and has them convinced that rebuilding will take years, but the emotional scars will last forever. “The circumstances around an earthquake, so big, the walls moving, the idea that your life can change in seconds, is very impactful,” said Gonzalez. “If you survive, just be grateful to be alive. Anything can be rebuilt,” said Marmo. Despite the severe damage to their home and surrounding areas, Marmo said she’s grateful that her family survived. ...read more read less