Argentine footballer Lucas Trejo loses family in devastating Venezuela earthquakes

Caracas: The wife and two children of Argentine football player Lucas Trejo have died following the powerful twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela, his club announced Sunday.

Trejo, who plays for Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira, a second-division Venezuelan team, searched for his wife, Yanina, and their children, Aaron and Ainhoa, in the debris for three days before emergency personnel retrieved their bodies, US media reported.

"Club Sport Maritimo La Guaira deeply mourns the irreparable loss of our player's wife and children," the team said in a statement published to Instagram alongside a photograph of the family.

The 38-year-old Trejo was participating in a team training session in Caracas when the earthquakes, which registered magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, struck on Wednesday evening, according to CNN.

He immediately travelled back to his residence in La Guaira, the state that sustained the most severe destruction from the disaster, where he encountered "a horrific scene," Trejo's brother-in-law, Ricardo Ardiles, told CNN.

"He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been," Ardiles said.

Nearly 1,500 people have died, and tens of thousands remain missing, Venezuelan officials announced Sunday.

With inputs from AFP