San Cristobal – 8 October 2019

1. Rescue workers' truck  ("Defensa Civil") showing gasoline empty

2. Civil Protection trucks parked because they are out of gas

3. Pan right of rescuers talking and one of them on a motorcycle preparing to leave the headquarters to attend an emergency

4. Sign reading (Spanish) Civil Protection) outside headquarters

5. Nelson Suarez, a medical assistant, leaving to attend an emergency

6. Suarez arriving at an emergency call

7. Various of Suarez examining a patient

8. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Nelson Suarez, medical assistant:

"A big problem, and remember that we, the officials, we are not the ones who suffer, people suffer, they are the ones who wait for our attention and our service and our prompt response, because we have units that on the way to an emergency, have run out of fuel. Then, it gives one a strong feeling. Well, I say it personally, because, we always have the conviction and vocation to safeguard the lives of people who need it."

9. Suarez leaving on his motorcycle

10. Man writing numbers on the windshield of the cars while they are in a long line waiting to fill their car tanks with gasoline

11. A gas station

12. People arguing in the line

13. A line of cars waiting for gasoline

14. Various of gas station

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Caracas – 10 October 2019

15. Luis Vicente Leon, the President of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis, walking into his office and taking a seat

16. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Luis Vicente Leon, President of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis:

"The authorities begin at first to try to regulate the slick ones, those who try to get more gasoline (than other people). But where does it come from? An automatic drift to what? To be charged for gas, they charge for the spots and it becomes a very important business and the guard (National Guard officers) or the employee of the gas station, or the one who decides who is going to get the the gasoline, begins to charge dollars for gasoline. In other words, they no longer sell gasoline for the price (the posted price on the pumps), now the price it is irrelevant, you start paying the person giving you the right to pump gasoline."

17. Various of Leon working in his office

18. SOUNDBITE (Spanish ) Luis Vicente Leon, President of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis:

"It becomes a business, what happens when the business is so profitable? That you no longer care about the natural conditions of the market. If a doctor is coming, if an ambulance is coming, if a Civil Protection car is coming, you used to give them the priority to get gas but now that priority is costing someone who is charging to get that gas. Therefore, he does not want privileges for anyone. He simply, the only thing that matters to him is who pays, because who pays is the one who helps him make money in that corrupt process that has turned gasoline in areas of the country."

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San Cristobal – 8 October 2019

19. A chain to show that a gas station is closed for business

20. Line of cars

21. Various of women with children next to their car in line to their tank

22. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Maribel Peña, resident:

"Because of the supposed shortage of gasoline we have been here since yesterday at half past four in the afternoon, we are with my son-in-law, my daughter and my grandchildren and my son who I took to preschool a while ago,and I returned home on foot which is down in the Concord (another neighbourhood). I came back and climbed, so as not to get the car out of the queue, so as not to lose the chance and well, here we are waiting."

23. Rescue equipment next to an ambulance

24. Rescuer checking the tires of the truck

25. Close of the damaged tire

26. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Jaiberth Zambrano, Director of Civil Protection for Táchira state:

"Today, we had to reject many calls that came in to Civil Protection in the control centre because we had no way to address them. We had no fuel to approach this call for attention that occurred today."

27. Various of Civil Protection trucks parked due to the fact that their gas tanks are empty

28. A gasoline gauge showing the tank is empty

Ambulance services have become the latest casualty of Venezuela's unravelling crisis, struggling to fill the tank to go on emergency call outs as gasoline scarcities deepen in parts of the country.

Lines winding around city blocks for miles (kilometres) up to service stations have long plagued residents living in border states of Venezuela, a country with the world's largest proven oil reserves.

First responders in the mountainous state of Tachira say now they're being stripped of priority service at filling stations, forced to take their place in the same long lines, likely the victim of a thriving black market spawned by the world's cheapest gasoline.

Officials say that without adequate fuel they're not able to provide routine transport to mothers giving birth, elderly patients needing routine care and diabetics requiring dialysis.

Medical workers say it's only a matter of time before shortages lead to a needless death.

Venezuela was once among Latin America's wealthiest nations, rich with abundant oil reserves.

Production has plummeted to a fifth of historic highs two decades ago, which critics blame on years of corruption and mismanagement of the state-run oil firm PDVSA under socialist rule.

For his part, President Nicolás Maduro accuses the United States of leading an economic war bent on toppling his socialist government.

The Trump administration, which backs opposition leader Juan Guaidó, sanctioned PDVSA early this year aimed at pressuring from Maduro power.

Amid the rising political fervor, drivers increasingly struggle to find fuel deep inside Venezuela, where gasoline is among the cheapest in the world - yet increasingly scarce.

The capital of Caracas has been spared fuel shortages as the seat of government and the nation's largest population centre.

Meanwhile farmers in Tachira reported gasoline shortages earlier this year, preventing them from driving in labourers to harvest carrots and potatoes and then shipping the produce to market.

Crops spoiled in the field at a time of unprecedented hunger in Venezuela, driving more than four million abroad.

Luis Vicente Leon, president of Caracas-based polling firm Datanalisis, said that the problem hitting ambulances comes from a thriving black market trade sending Venezuela's dirt-cheap gasoline across border to Colombia, where it turns a huge profit for international prices.

Roughly five cars could fill up for one US penny on Venezuela's subsidized gasoline, which Leon said makes it cheaper than bottled water and more profitable than drug trafficking.

It's likely that ambulances are being cut off from the pump by corrupt officials who get a better payoff from opportunists sneaking gasoline into Colombia, such as drivers filling hidden double tanks or young men shouldering brimming jugs by foot across illegal paths.

Officials with Tachira's National Guard and National Police, which patrol the filling stations, did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Typically, drivers line up their cars starting at gas stations, and officials come by to mark a number in the corner of each windshield noting their place in line.

They wait for two or three days, sometimes sleeping on the hood rather than risk losing their place.

Jaiberth Zambrano, director Tachira state's Civil Protection services, said that ambulance drivers over the weekend began to radio dispatchers with startling messages, saying that National Guard officials were turning them away.