Rescue efforts continued in flooded districts throughout Venezuela yesterday, as President Hugo Chavez declared three days of national mourning for the victims. According to official figures, 300 people died in the flooding, but eyewitnesses involved in the aid operation put the toll at several times that number.
"There are entire areas which could be declared cemeteries," said Mr Chavez, as corpses floated along rivers which were roads just a few days before.
Medical teams are flying in to affected areas, hoping to prevent outbreaks of disease while the army has put troops on standby to prevent looting, as people take advantage of the chaos to stock up on food and clothes.
In Vargas state, an impoverished district just outside Caracas, the death toll could be as high as 25,000. The entire average annual rainfall fell in just eight days.
"We're doing our best," said Mr Lenin Marcano, the mayor of La Guaira, the capital of Vargas, who broke down on national television as he announced the death toll. "But as the hours pass there is less and less hope for the missing people," he said.
The Venezuelan government has been unable to cope with the emergency, the country's worst disaster in 50 years, which occurred at a time of the year when there is generally no rain at all.
International aid poured in from Mexico, Cuba, the US and Spain, but even round-the-clock airlifts have been unable to rescue all the stranded people, let alone begin the search for survivors trapped beneath bridges, highways and their own homes.
Mr Chavez sent 1,000 army parachutists into Vargas state, with five days of provisions, where they will visit areas cut off from the outside world, in an attempt to rescue injured and missing people and assess the overall damage.
In Petare-Guarenas, on the outskirts of Caracas, dozens of families stood at the side of the road, with bags of clothes and other meagre possessions, uncertain as to where they would spend the night.
Mr William Lopez, wearing just trousers and sandals, asked me to help him load his family's clothes onto his back, already straining under the weight of a mattress donated by Venezuelan volunteers.
We walked together to the place where his home once stood, perched on a steep hillside, now a pile of sticks floating in the river below. His two small children cried for food while he described how an elderly neighbour, confined to a wheelchair, was swept over the edge of the hill.
"Do you think this is a punishment from God for our ignorance?" he asked. He had voted "Yes" to the new constitution last Wednesday, despite Church opposition.
Venezuela is a deeply religious country and Mr Chavez picked a fight with the Catholic hierarchy just as the floods began last week, calling for an "exorcism" of bishops and cardinals who spoke out against the new constitution.
Venezuelan bishops held a huge procession in Caracas on Saturday, taking the statue of Saint Paul of Nazarene out of the basilica and into the streets.
"There are sins we commit which attract the wrath of God," warned Archbishop Ignacio Velasco of Caracas, leaving no doubt that he referred to Mr Chavez's harsh words against the Church. "We ask God to forgive him [Chavez] his sins, his pride and his disrespect," the archbishop said.
In his first address to the nation since the floods began, Mr Chavez looked shaken by the events, thanked the Church effusively for its help in accommodating flood refugees and mentioning God 15 times, asking for Him to take pity on the souls of the Venezuelan people.
The people of Caracas ignored official pleas to stay at home this weekend and allow rescue missions to do their work unhindered. Streets were jammed with Christmas shoppers, even as refugees poured in from flooded districts, an incongruous and sad sight.
"If I stay at home I will only dwell on all this tragedy," said one woman, weighed down with bags of toys.
The mayor of Caracas, Mr Antonio Ledesma, ordered dozens of graves to be dug at the city's main cemetery today, to accommodate four corpses at a time, as the rains subsided and bodies slowly started to surface.