Strong earthquakes struck west of Venezuela’s capital on Wednesday afternoon, bringing down buildings in Caracas and causing scientists to estimate “high casualties and extensive damage” to the South American country.

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck about 160 km (100 miles) west of Caracas, with a magnitude 7.5 tremor hitting less than a minute later, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

“High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” the USGS said, with an initial death toll estimate likely between 10,000 and 100,000.

Authorities did not immediately give estimates for deaths or injuries. “Some buildings have been brought down (in Caracas), houses have collapsed,” Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said on state television.

Video footage showed emergency workers climbing into the ruins of one collapsed building in the capital as night began to fall.

Many Venezuelans were at home when the quakes hit, celebrating a public holiday commemorating an 1821 military victory which secured Venezuela’s independence from Spain.

“As soon as it started, we began hearing people screaming,” said Astrid Ramirez, a 41-year-old publicist in western Caracas. “Everyone was running down the stairs.”

Venezuela sits on a seismically active tectonic region where the Caribbean Plate collides with the South American Plate.

Residents in the capital, which was also rocked by a deadly magnitude 6.3 earthquake in 1967, rushed to evacuate as the quake shook buildings.

“There was a very loud crash. Things fell in the house, jugs inside the refrigerator. I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said Coro Martinez, 56, who lives in eastern Caracas.

Maria Romero, an 80-year-old pensioner on the south side of Caracas, said that the police helped her get out. “This earthquake was horrible, even worse than the one in 1967,” she added.

Fire trucks could be seen on the streets in the capital, and the facades of some buildings had suffered significant damage.

The U.S. Tsunami Warning System issued a tsunami threat for Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands following the earthquake, adding that islands off the coast of Venezuela — Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire — could also be hit by hazardous waves. It withdrew the warning within about an hour.

LONDON — European markets are expected to open in negative territory on Monday as last week’s positive sentiment wears off.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 is expected to open 0.1% lower, Germany’s DAX is seen 0.17% lower, and the French CAC index is seen 0.3% lower, according to data from IG Group.

It follows a record-breaking previous session where Europe’s benchmark Stoxx 600 index hit a fresh intraday high of 588.07 points, as investors digested a swathe of interest rate decisions.

The U.S. and U.K. presidents had a phone call on Sunday, where they discussed Ukraine and Gaza, as attempts to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine march on.

European and Ukrainian negotiators have made changes to the U.S.-drafted peace deal proposal that was leaked to the media last month, but a Kremlin policy aide said on Sunday that they “definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace.” European and Ukrainian leaders were concerned the proposal skewed in Russia’s favor and Kyiv would be pressured into conceding too much. The war is now nearing four years.

Elsewhere, in the private market, fast fashion behemoth Shien escaped a three-month ban in France for selling child-like sex dolls after a court ruled in its favor in a case against the French government on Friday. Shein must implement age verification on its site, the court ordered. The government said it will appeal the decision.

There are no major data releases today, though U.K. GDP and business investment figures are set to be confirmed after previous preliminary releases.

Asia-Pacific markets climbed on Monday as investors parsed China’s central bank’s decision to keep its loan prime rates steady. The People’s Bank of China kept its 1-year and 5-year loan prime rates unchanged at 3% and 3.5% respectively, holding them for a seventh straight meeting, in line with a Reuters survey.

Stateside, stock futures rose on Sunday night as traders deliberate whether tech can regain its footing before the year’s end following a late-week surge that lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite last week.

— CNBC’s Lee Ying Shan contributed to this report.

Home prices have finally come down compared with last year, though just fractionally, according to daily reads from Parcl Labs, which looks at high-frequency listing data on single-family homes, condos and townhomes, both new and existing.

They may stay softer, though, as home prices are down 1.4% in just the last three months.

On a national level, home prices have not gone negative since mid-2023, a year after the Federal Reserve first brought rates up from zero, and mortgage rates moved sharply higher. From March 2022 to June 2023, the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage went from 3.9% to just over 7%, according to Mortgage News Daily.

But even then, prices were negative on a year-over-year basis for just a few months. It was nothing like the great financial crisis when home prices dropped 27% from their peak in 2006 to their trough in 2012, according to the S&P Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.

“More recently we have seen a period of national softness emerging after the rapid run-up during the Covid years, 2020 to 2022,” said Jason Lewris, co-founder of Parcl Labs. “The sharp increase in mortgage rates in 2022 and 2023 created an affordability shock: buyers were priced out, sales volumes dropped, and sellers had to adjust expectations. Historically, that combination of a credit or affordability shock, weaker demand, and more inventory than the market can easily absorb is what tends to produce broad national price declines.”

Inventory today is still historically low, but it has come off its near-record lows of recent years. Active listings in November were nearly 13% higher than November 2024, but new listings were just 1.7% higher, according to Realtor.com. Sellers are also pulling their homes off the market at an unusually high rate.

Prices nationally are down less than 1%, but certain markets are seeing more significant drops: Prices in Austin, Texas, are down 10% from last year; in Denver, they’re down 5%, according to Parcl Labs. Tampa, Florida, and Houston both saw prices fall 4%, and Atlanta and Phoenix saw price decreases of 3%.

There are also markets seeing gains: in Cleveland, prices gained 6%; Chicago and New York City both saw price increases of 5%; Philadelphia saw prices rise 3%; and Pittsburgh and Boston both saw 2% price gains, according to Parcl.

While other home price indexes and surveys measure just existing home values, this one measures both new and existing. There has been no government data on housing starts, building permits or sales of newly built homes since before the government shutdown started, so it’s difficult to paint any kind of supply picture in the price forecast….

At least 241 people were killed when an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed into a residential area moments after takeoff from Ahmedabad in western India, the carrier said.

There was a sole survivor from the plane who was taken to a local hospital, the airline said on X. The plane was bound for London Gatwick Airport.

Video posted on social media appeared to show the jetliner descending followed by a fireball and a dark plume of smoke. It marks the first fatal crash of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner plane.

There were 242 people on board the more than 11-year-old aircraft: 230 passengers and 12 crew members, Air India said.

Others on the ground were also killed, local officials told some media outlets.

“Approximately 294 have died. This includes some students as the plane crashed on the building where they were staying,” Vidhi Chaudhary, a top state police officer, told Reuters.

The signal from Air India Flight 171 was lost at 1:38 p.m. local time, less than a minute after takeoff, flight tracking site FlightRadar24 said.

“This is a difficult day for all of us at Air India and our efforts now are focused entirely on the needs of our passengers, crew members, their families and loved ones,” the carrier’s CEO, Campbell Wilson, said in a video message posted on social media. He added that those with injuries were taken to a nearby hospital.

Those on board included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals and one Canadian, Wilson said. The survivor is a British national originally from India, the carrier said.

Initial flight-path data “shows that the aircraft reached a maximum barometric altitude of 625 feet (airport altitude is about 200 feet) and then it started to descend with an vertical speed of -475 feet per minute,” Flightradar said on X.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner is a top-selling wide-body aircraft used on longer routes. The aircraft was delivered to Air India in 2014, according Flightradar24.

The cause of the crash and why the plane lost altitude so quickly weren’t immediately known and could take months to determine. Under international protocols during crashes, the country where the incident took place will lead the investigation, along with officials, the maker of the aircraft and its engines, and others.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it will send a team of investigators to India.

“We understand people are eager for information, and please know that we will continue to share accurate and timely information as soon as we can,” CEO Wilson said.

The more than 11-year-old plane had 41,000 hours of flight time, nearly 8,000 takeoffs, average for that aircraft and the year it was built, according to aviation-data firm…