Pakistan, June 26 -- Two powerful earthquakes struck Venezuela's northern coast late on Wednesday, killing at least 164 people, injuring nearly 1,000 and bringing down buildings in and around Caracas, as authorities declared a state of emergency and warned that the toll could rise.

By Thursday, it had. Rescue workers were still digging through collapsed homes and apartment blocks, hospitals were receiving the injured, and officials were trying to count the dead in a country where the full scale of a disaster is rarely known on the first night. In La Guaira, the coastal state near the capital, residents described buildings split open, streets filled with rubble, power cuts, water shortages and families refusing to go back indoors.

The de...