Tens of thousands of people remain unaccounted for, while collapsed buildings line cities across the country, which is already grappling with an economic crisis and political turmoil following the capture of former president Nicolas Maduro by US forces in January.

Millions of people were also feared to lack sanitation and other basic needs after one of Latin America's most devastating earthquakes.

International rescue teams from the United States, Mexico and elsewhere scrabbled to save people as desperate residents dug by hand for relatives trapped in the pancaked layers and rubble of collapsed apartments.

In one of the worst hit areas, the coastal city of La Guaira, Hector Aguilera came to search for four family members buried in the rubble since the back-to-back quakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck on Wednesday. Two other of his family members were rescued.

"We don't have the support to get our family out -- we can't do it alone. They are buried there: we know they are dead, but here we are," he said.

"We have no hope left, all I have are memories."

Experts say the first 72 hours after natural disasters -- which have now passed -- are the key, narrow window for finding the living. After that the search becomes one of recovering bodies.

In Caracas' San Berdardino neighborhood, volunteer rescuers clambered over one collapsed building, using drills to break up concrete and forming lines to remove rubble by hand.

In Chacao, another area of the capital, large electronic screens on a building usually used for advertising were showing the faces of missing people in a bid to help find them.

On Saturday, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez reported 1,430 dead and 3,238 people injured -- a toll that was expected to rise.