The president of Venezuela's National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, said the death toll from the two powerful earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday rose to 1,430 on Saturday.

Rodriguez also pointed out that 3,238 people were injured by the two powerful earthquakes.

The new figures came as rescuers continued to search for survivors of the 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes that devastated the South American country.

Venezuelan families had reported at least 68,900 people missing as of Saturday morning.

Venezuelans searching for loved ones and neighbours have used shovels, heavy equipment, ropes and even bare hands on piles of collapsed concrete across La Guerra, one of Venezuela's worst-hit states.

Simón Bolívar International Airport, which has partially reopened, has started receiving cargo flights carrying humanitarian aid.

Raging nations: Nearly 7 million people affected by the earthquakes

The United Nations estimated on Saturday that about 7 million people may have been affected by the two earthquakes that struck the country.

"Some 6.76 million people may have been affected by the two devastating earthquakes," the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said in a statement, basing its estimates on available population data and damage analysis.

These estimates, which include about 2 million people in the capital Caracas alone, "highlight the potentially broad humanitarian impact of this disaster", it said.

In Geneva, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told AFP: "This is a very complex emergency response," adding: "We have more than 50,000 missing people... So there is a huge task ahead of us to search through the rubble."

Damage from the quakes was estimated at about $7 billion, equivalent to about 6 percent of Venezuela's gross domestic product, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said Saturday.