I lived through the less damaging 1967 earthquake. Caracas sits in a valley. Back then the buildings that collapsed were either sub-standard/illegal construction or built on sediment near the bottom of the valley. Buildings built on higher ground, on solid rock suffered a lot less. The reason is that the softer ground propagated the seismic waves more than solid rock. My building is on higher ground and survived the 1967 earthquake with just a few cracks. I’ll contact my neighbours by email in a day or two.
BTW, the 35 seconds seemed an eternity! A funny anecdote, supposedly immigrants from earthquake prone Chile looked out the window, “That was an earthquake, what’s for lunch?”
The Captain