New Delhi, July 17 -- CARACAS - Cinthia Pulido describes what the first moments of June 24 looked like from street level in La Guaira. The state arrived, she says - eventually. What stopped the dying in those first hours was her neighbors. "From the very first moment, from when the earthquake happened, there was an immediate response, but from civilians." Three weeks later, she is among the 21,120 Venezuelans living in government shelters. The official death toll has reached 4,930.

$11 billion in Venezuelan government funds - held by the United States and European governments under sanctions imposed since 2015 - is money Venezuela cannot access while it tries to bury its dead, feed its displaced, and determine what reconstruction will co...