Concentric is monitoring the situation in Venezuela after the country was hit by two powerful earthquakes just seconds apart, leading to over 1,450 deaths, and thousands of people injured and displaced. We are also tracking allegations made by Anthropic to the U.S. Senate accusing Chinese company Alibaba of industrial scale artificial intelligence (AI) distillation. Finally, we are assessing the heatwave in Europe, which has led to over 1,000 deaths and severely impacted infrastructure and transport across the continent.
Venezuela Declares National Emergency After Powerful Twin Earthquakes Kill 1,450
The Government of Venezuela has declared a state of national emergency after the country was hit by two powerful earthquakes almost consecutively on June 24, killing at least 1,450 people and injuring over 3,200. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake was followed 39 seconds later by a stronger 7.5 magnitude quake on the border of the states of Carabobo and Yaracuy and were felt across Venezuela and beyond, with violent shaking reported in neighbouring regions in Colombia and in the Brazilian Amazon. Over 774 buildings across the country have collapsed, leaving an estimated 12,721 people displaced, with the states of Trujillo, Carabobo, Miranda, and La Guaira the hardest hit. The country’s busiest airport, Maiquetía Airport in Caracas, was closed due to serious structural damage. Both the Caracas Metro and the Tuy Valley Railway have been closed to “facilitate rescue and recovery efforts for vital infrastructure”, while the direct gas service to buildings in Caracas was shut off to avoid any accidents.
We advise organizations with personnel, assets, or supply chain dependencies in northern Venezuela to implement immediate travel restrictions, conduct personnel accountability checks, and monitor Caribbean and Colombian logistics corridors for cascading disruption over the next 30 days.
Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of Largest Known AI Model Theft in Industry History
Anthropic has accused Chinese tech company Alibaba of the “largest known distillation attack” on the company in the industry’s history in a letter sent to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, stating operators linked to Alibaba’s Qwen AI lab used nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts to carry out 28.8 million exchanges with its models. Anthropic previously accused smaller Chinese AI startups, including DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot AI of similar distillation attacks, but the alleged campaign by Alibaba exceeds the combined volume of these previous efforts. Distillation is an AI training method where a less capable model is built using outputs from a stronger one, allowing a competitor to replicate advanced capabilities at a fraction of the original development cost. The allegations against Alibaba places further pressure on the company, which the Pentagon added to its Chinese military companies blacklist on June 8 and which is now simultaneously fighting that designation in court. Senate legislation is advancing that would treat AI model outputs as a controlled technology export, equivalent to advanced chip shipments.
We advise organizations operating in AI-exposed sectors should review API access controls and vendor security policies, and monitor legislative developments closely as the regulatory environment around AI intellectual property is moving faster than the courts.
Record European Heatwave Kills Over 1,000, Strains Power Grids and Threatens Critical Infrastructure
Europe is experiencing its worst recorded heatwave, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius across France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands since June 20. France has recorded approximately 1,000 excess deaths, with the toll expected to rise, while Spain’s health monitoring agency attributed at least 327 deaths to the heat between Sunday and Thursday alone. Germany set an all-time temperature record of 41.3°C in Saarbrücken, and more than three-quarters of France were placed under a red weather alert for the first time in history. The heatwave has severely disrupted transport, electricity generation, and healthcare across the continent. In France, a reactor at the Golfech nuclear plant shut down when the river used to cool it became too hot, and French nuclear plants cut output by around seven percent of total national demand as high temperatures limited access to cooling water across multiple sites. Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant similarly reduced output due to high temperatures in the Danube, while Belgium recorded electricity prices exceeding 1 euro per kWh at sunset as traditional power stations were pushed to their limits to meet air conditioning demand. Rail services were reduced or suspended in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom; 36,000 French households lost power following storms, and Italy’s Po River has shrunk enough to allow seawater to penetrate 18 kilometres inland, threatening agriculture and water supplies.
We advise organizations with operations, facilities, data centres, or supply chain dependencies in Western and Central Europe should assess heat-related operational continuity risks, as cooler conditions forecast for Western Europe this week will shift the heatwave into Central Europe and the Balkans, where infrastructure resilience is generally lower.
