On Sunday, officials said heavy rain and landslides have left at least 22 people dead and 52 missing, officials said.
Authorities believe several other unidentified people in the town, Las Tejerías, are still trapped in their homes by the mud.
A top military officer, Remigio Ceballos, said at a news conference in Las Tejerías, about 40 kilometers southwest of the capital Caracas, that the Venezuelan armed forces planned to deploy canines and aircraft. unmanned aircraft to search for the missing people.
Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, said at the press conference that authorities were making every effort to bring them out alive, but nearly two dozen people are believed to have died.
“We have lost our children, our daughters, all of which are very sad,” Ms. Rodríguez said.
The rains started late Saturday afternoon, and intensified throughout the night. The overflowing water swept away trees, power poles, damaged homes and businesses. Cell phone service, already well known in the area, was nearly wiped out by the storm.
About 20,000 homes across the surrounding Santos Michelena municipality have been affected, according to the Red Cross in Aragua State.
On Sunday, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, declare area a disaster zone and declare three days of national mourning. His vice president said the government would provide shelter to the victims, support to damaged businesses and aid to farmers who lost their crops.
This is usually the rainy season in Venezuela, but it has been especially bad this year.
“The effects of the climate crisis are causing this tragedy,” Ms. Rodríguez said.
On Sunday evening, it was reported that it had begun to rain again in the area.
Elsewhere in the region, Tropical Storm Julia strengthened into a hurricane and caused flash flooding and landslides in parts of Central America over the weekend.
The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, say on Twitter Julia injured two people, destroyed two homes and damaged 101 homes on the Colombian island of San Andres.
On Sunday morning, the storm made landfall in Nicaragua before weakening and becoming a tropical storm, bringing heavy rains.
The storm, which formed just 10 days after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida, hit the state as a powerful Category 4 hurricane, destroying residential areas and infrastructure, causing flooding, power outages and kill at least 120 peopleaccording to state and local officials.
Ian, who then regained the strength of the storm before making landfall in South Carolina, followed a relatively quiet start to the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November. Only three hurricanes were named before September 1, and none in August, the first since 1997.
Typhoon activity occurred in early September with Danielle and Earlformed within a day of each other, and Ian, formed on September 26.
Isayen Herrera contribution report.
