Critical rescue window passes in quake-hit Venezuela as death toll nears 1,500

The critical 72-hour window for finding survivors of the powerful twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela had completely closed by Monday, leaving international teams facing a grim race against time to pull anyone else alive from the debris. The death toll has surpassed 1,450 and nearly 200 buildings have completely collapsed.A man and his teen son were found alive under the rubble on Sunday by French and American rescue teams in Caraballeda, a town about 40km north of Caracas.The rescue offered a glimmer of hope in an ongoing tragedy that has shaken a country already mired in an economic crisis, but tens of thousands of people were still reported missing and the critical 72-hour window for rescuing trapped victims following a natural disaster has now passed.