Showcase: Deadly Streets - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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paul lowe on 18 Sep 09CARACAS, Venezuela - Murders in this hardened city have grown so widespread that looking at the homicide statistics alone can seem banal. In one 60-hour span in July, for instance, the Bello Monte morgue overflowed with the corpses of 49 murder victims. Homicides nationwide surged almost 31 percent in the first quarter to 4,659, according to the Interior Ministry. No wonder Caraqueños grimly joke about studies of violence that rank their city as deadlier than Baghdad. "Capitolio," the new book on Venezuela by Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson, offers a stunning view into Caracas's descent from its perch as one of Latin America's most economically advanced, if unequal, cities into a place gripped by low-intensity chaos and fear.