In what is being described as a “miracle rescue”, a 43-year-old man has been pulled alive from around 140 tonnes of rubble, after being buried some 29 feet below a building that collapsed following the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela, eight days ago.

Hernán Alberto Gil Flores was working as a security guard at the Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in the coastal town in La Guaira, when the twin quakes struck on 24 June. He had been on duty in a small concrete booth in the basement of the parking lot adjacent to the mall and it appears that the booth created a shell around him and created a vital pocket of air, protecting him from what would otherwise have been certain death.

Rescuers had been navigating a highly unstable structure, torrential rain and persistent aftershocks since a specialised team from the Costa Rican Red Cross first detected signs of life and established contact with him back on Sunday the 28th.

Emergency workers from not only Costa Rica and Venezuela, but also countries such as: Chile, El Salvador, Mexico, Portugal and the United States had toiled for more than 100 hours to free Gil, using a telescopic camera to help maintain constant contact with him, passing water and liquid nutrients via an an intravenous drip, threaded through a narrow shaft to keep him hydrated. This meant that he was able to be kept alive far longer than the 48-72-hour threshold most people are given to survive in similar disasters.

During the painstaking operation to excavate the mass of concrete covering Gil, parts of the access ducts that had been built to reach him collapsed several times, highlighting the dangers the work posed to not only the trapped man, but his would-be rescuers too. Throughout the process to free Gil he seemingly remained calm and cheerful even asking for hydration drinks of specific flavours and chatting about his family.

One Chilean firefighter had earlier described the operation to rescue Gil as “without doubt the most complex and technically difficult which I’ve had to tackle”. Therefore, when after 8 days entombed, Gil emerged from his ordeal – without so much as a crushed nail – there were scenes of great delight amongst his rescuers, who broke out into rapturous applause as they embraced each other, laughing with a mixture of joy and relief.

Allan Madrigal, a paramedic with the Costa Rican Red Cross, who first heard Gil’s faint cries for help said: “It was an emotional moment” recalling how he had not initially trusted his own ears and asked a colleague to confirm that he “wasn’t just imagining it.”

Gil had apparently asked the rescue team not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn’t make it, but another Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado reassured him that “We were never going to leave him here.” His wife – and mother to their 2 young children – Gusbimar González, explained how she had grappled with “days of great sorrow” before hearing that rescuers made contact. “When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness.”

Gil’s survival has offered a rare moment of hope amid Venezuela’s worst natural disaster in more than a century, as search teams continue to comb through widespread destruction in the hope of finding more survivors. The 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela, and has killed as of Thursday 2 June, 2,595 people. In addition, more than 11,000 others are injured, many seriously and tens of thousands are still missing.