Among the casualties are believed to be as many as 140 people deported from the United States, including children, who were staying at a hotel that was toppled by Wednesday's back-to-back 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes.
On the fifth day of rescue efforts, the government tally showed nearly 200 buildings completely flattened and several hundred severely damaged.
The rising toll of casualties - including 5000 injured - was likely exacerbated by decades of neglect, poor building code enforcement and shoddy licensing practices under past leaders Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, experts said.
In El Junquito, a small mountainous region about 33km west of Caracas where Venezuelans often spend weekends, residents say they have seen few public officials, while farmers and other residents have been providing basic supplies to the community.
"We are waiting for answers, for debris to be cleaned up, for inspections," said Keily Ibarra, a 33-year-old manicurist leading citizen complaints to authorities.
El Junquito's commercial centre was largely destroyed by the quakes, with collapsed buildings visible during a Reuters visit. Several residents with nowhere else to go have set up tents in an open field, despite the risk posed by damaged and collapsed buildings nearby.
Signalling rising tensions surrounding the politics of the recovery effort, Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado said the Venezuelan government had blocked her entry from Panama but resolved to find a way back to help the victims.
Machado had been seen as a credible opponent to Maduro, but the Trump administration's ouster of Maduro in January led to his vice president Delcy Rodriguez taking power, with Washington's backing.
Trump's administration has asked Machado to put her return on hold.
"At this moment, I am willing to do whatever it takes, speak to whoever I need to speak to, in order to coordinate and serve our people," Machado said in a video on X.
The international community has rallied to help Venezuela deal with the disaster, with most help focused in La Guaira, the hardest-hit state.
The South American country has received support from 30 nations, including 1000 metric tonnes of supplies, more than 3600 rescue and support workers as well as 118 search-and-rescue canines. It is unclear how many people are still trapped. Websites where citizens register missing loved ones show about 45,000 people unaccounted for.
Jorge Rodriguez, the acting president's brother and president of the National Assembly, on Monday put the number of confirmed dead at 1719, with 5034 injured and 15,866 left homeless.
Power outages on Monday have prevented a refinery, a petrochemical complex and other industrial plants in the country's central region from restarting, industry sources said.
Despite those issues, state-run oil company PDVSA was not expecting any domestic fuel shortages as output from refineries in the country's eastern and western regions is capable of meeting demand, even after increased usage by the rescue teams, they said.
