With Hurricane Sandy delivering a movie-quality disaster to New York City, people were suddenly put in mind of apocalyptic scenarios: looted shops, streets without power, the 1970s vision of a dystopian city.

New York doesn’t seem to be headed that way anytime soon, even with last week’s nor’easter. But if you’re curious about what a genuine modern post-apocalyptic urban environment might look like, there’s an example: a 45-story office tower in Caracas. After the building’s developer died and its financing dried up in the 1990s, the building was abandoned and is now home to some 3,000 squatters.