Washington DC - President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that the US stood "ready, willing, and able to help" Venezuela after the South American nation was hit by two powerful earthquakes.

"The two major earthquakes that just hit the great people of Venezuela are both massive in scale and have left a devastating number of deaths," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

"The U.S.A. stands ready, willing, and able to help! I have instructed all agencies of our government to get ready to move quickly. We will be there for our new and great friends. Early reports are not good!!!"

Powerful twin earthquakes have killed 32 people and injured more than 700 in Venezuela, the nation's interim President Delcy Rodriguez said Thursday, after the massive shocks collapsed entire buildings and sent people running in panic.

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Rescue workers and residents were seen clambering on piles of rubble in the hunt for survivors after the disaster that prompted Rodriguez to declare a state of emergency.

The earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 struck the same area of Venezuela on Wednesday, according to the US Geological Survey, causing buildings in the capital to crumble and forcing the closure of the country's main airport.

Addressing the nation early Thursday, Rodriguez said the government had "received reports of 32 deaths" and "more than 700 injured," adding she did not yet have data on the "hardest-hit region" of La Guaira, located near the capital.

Rodriguez said earlier that 20 aftershocks had followed the quakes.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the US is "immediately deploying" rescuers and aid to Venezuela.

"America stands with the Venezuelan people during this difficult time and at the direction of President Trump, the State Department is immediately deploying search and rescue teams, medical resources, and humanitarian assistance to Venezuela," Rubio wrote on X.

The quakes triggered panic in the capital of Caracas and drove people into the streets, AFP journalists saw.

"The stairs came away, the whole wall cracked. Things fell from the ceiling. It was horrible," said 54-year-old bank employee Odalis Escalona.

An AFP journalist saw a 22-story building completely destroyed in the capital's Altamira neighborhood, where people cried out relatives' names as volunteers climbed over the rubble.

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"We need flashlights," one of them said.

The first quake, with an epicenter 13 miles west of the coastal town of Moron, occurred at 2204 GMT, USGS said. Within a minute, a 7.5-magnitude quake struck about 28 miles away.

"This earthquake was the second event in a doublet. This magnitude 7.5 mainshock was preceded by 39 seconds by a 7.2 foreshock," USGS said.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello asked people to leave their homes, adding that gas supplies had been cut to several buildings as a precaution.

"We have some damaged structures and we don't want any kind of accident involving gas to occur," he said.

The Maiquetia International Airport, located near Caracas, was closed due to "serious damage" to its infrastructure, Rodriguez said, with social media posts showing its severely damaged facilities.

The quake was felt as far away as the Colombian capital of Bogota, where alarms sounded and some residents evacuated buildings as a precaution.

Freddy Tovar, coordinator of Colombia's National Seismological Network, said they had received more than 200 reports of tremors nationwide.

"The conditions of this seismic event mean that some aftershocks may occur, which could also be widely felt across Colombian territory," he said in a video posted on X.

The Colombian disaster management agency UNGRD ruled out the possibility of a tsunami taking place in the aftermath.

"NO tsunami, NO danger from a recent earthquake," the US National Tsunami Warning Center said in an X post.

The strongest tremors in earthquake-prone Venezuela's recent history occurred in the northeast in 1997, killing 73 people, and in Caracas in 1967, when 236 people died.

Shortly after the twin quakes on Wednesday, a 7.2-magnitude tremor hit northern Japan, the country's weather agency said, with no casualties or material damage reported.