Jorge Bastidas didn't wait for the government. He built the missing-persons list himself.
Buenos Aires, Argentina (built for Venezuela, after the June 2026 earthquakes) · Jorge Bastidas
Published July 16, 2026
After twin earthquakes hit Venezuela and official reports stalled, a 31-year-old programmer in Buenos Aires built a citizen-run missing-persons tracker in three hours. It logged more than 30,000 reports in its first two days.
The story
The person and the place
Jorge Bastidas is a 31-year-old Venezuelan programmer living in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The problem
On June 24 and 25, 2026, magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes hit Venezuela. Families searching for missing loved ones needed answers, and the government's official reporting was slow to arrive.
The moment he didn't wait
Bastidas decided not to wait for an official response. "Who knew when the government was going to respond? We decided to take action," he said. Working with Claude Opus 4.8 and donated facial-recognition software, he built Desaparecidos Terremoto Venezuela, a citizen-run missing-persons tracker, in three hours. "Without AI, it would have taken me about 24 hours without rest to build something that took me three hours," he said.
The site logged more than 30,000 missing-person reports in its first two days online, run under the tagline "reconectemos a cada familia," let's reconnect every family.
"Who knew when the government was going to respond? We decided to take action." — Jorge Bastidas, Rest of World
Verified sources
Sources
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