Venezuela has spiralled from being Latin America’s richest country to a poverty-stricken nation where 80% of households suffer from food insecurity. Economists have called it the worst economic collapse outside of war in more than four decades. As the country is now faced with the added challenges of coronavirus, will it ever be rescued from total financial and social collapse? Click or scroll through to see Venezuela’s incredible rise and fall, starting from the discovery of oil there in 1914.

The first significant oil well in Venezuela was discovered in the Maracaibo Basin on the eve of World War I in 1914, changing the nation's fortunes forever. Prior to the find, Venezuela was a poor country that mainly exported coffee, cocoa and leather. Eager to exploit the valuable resource, foreign companies descended on Venezuela in their droves.

The spectacular blowout of the Barroso II well in Cabimas in 1922 attracted even more global attention, and by 1928 Venezuela had become the world's number one oil producer. During the 1930s, the country exported more oil than any other, eclipsing the USA and Soviet Union, yet Venezuela was only making a fraction of what the foreign companies were generating in profit.

In 1940, Venezuela pumped out 27 million tonnes of the black stuff. The following year, President Isaías Medina Angarita was handed power. Desperate for the country to reap the financial benefits of its vast oil reserves, he enacted the Hydrocarbons Law of 1943, which imposed a hefty tax on the oil companies.

A coup in 1945, followed by the country's first democratic elections, ushered in a left-wing government led by President Rómulo Betancourt (pictured). Together with his Minister of Energy, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, Betancourt adopted the famous 50:50 rule, giving the Venezuelan state a 50% cut of all oil profits, which bolstered the nation's coffers hugely.

A right-wing coup in 1948 resulted in a military dictatorship, which endured until 1958. But despite the lack of democracy in the country during this time, the standard of living for its inhabitants increased significantly, chiefly due to the regime's welfare programmes, rapid industrialisation and infrastructure overhaul. By 1958, Venezuela's GDP per capita was 90% that of the affluent USA.

Venezuela had been a major supplier of oil to the Allies during World War II, and production continued to soar after the war, as did lucrative oil revenues. By 1950, Venezuela had become the world's fourth richest nation behind the USA, Switzerland and New Zealand, with a GDP per capita of $7,424 (equivalent to around $77.5k/£62k today).

During the early 1960s, Venezuela was regarded as a rich country. Having returned to democracy in 1958, the nation was riding high. The Venezuelan government, which was led again by Rómulo Betancourt from 1959 to 1964, was instrumental in the creation of the multinational OPEC organisation in 1960, which helped stabilise global oil prices and allowed the country's economy to thrive.

Despite inheriting immense internal and external debt from the military government, which had spent lavishly on welfare, industrialisation and infrastructure, Betancourt was successful in balancing the budget and managed to pull off reform of the agricultural sector, all thanks to the flourishing oil sector.

A new government headed by President Raúl Leoni was elected in 1964. Like his predecessors, Leoni splashed out on generous public spending programmes, funding everything from healthcare and education to food subsidies and transport, and he bankrolled a number of large-scale infrastructure projects too. Crime in Venezuela was relatively low during the 1960s and social harmony was ubiquitous.

During the 1960s, the Venezuelan government attempted to avoid the so-called resource curse and diversify the oil-reliant economy. Hydroelectric, iron and steel industries were established, but the lure of oil was too great, and the attempts at diversification were relatively half-hearted. Instead of making hay while the sun shone, the powers that be put too much emphasis on the oil industry, a policy that would ultimately prove disastrous for the nation's future.

President Rafeal Caldera was elected in 1969, and Venezuela's boom times continued into the 1970s. By this point, Venezuelan workers were earning the highest wages in Latin America, and heavily-subsidised food, healthcare, education and transport made for a comfortable life for many of the country's citizens.

Caldera ditched the 50:50 rule and imposed an oil profit tax of 70%, paving the way for the nationalisation of the oil industry. The government upped spending on housing, education, healthcare and more, which further improved the standard of living for the average person in the country. Venezuelans had never had it so good.

In 1974, President Carlos Andrés Pérez, known as CAP, was voted in during the global oil crisis, which saw the price of the black stuff skyrocket. High demand for the commodity worked in his favour, and Pérez was able to nationalise the domestic oil industry. In 1976, his government founded the state-run monopoly Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

Pérez didn't hold back when it came to spending the country's oil money. Massive amounts of cash were channelled into infrastructure and industrialisation projects, including developing an aluminium industry, and money flowed like water (or oil to give a more appropriate analogy) into comprehensive social and welfare programmes.

Be that as it may, the Pérez government squandered obscene amounts of money, and corruption was rife under his leadership. Crime, which beforehand had been relatively low in Venezuela compared to other nations in Latin America, surged under his government, but was largely ignored by the authorities, who did little to tackle it.

By 1979, the country was mired in debt, despite the huge oil revenues. A new government led by Luis Herrera Campins was elected, but it failed to rein in government spending. When global oil prices collapsed in 1980 due to a glut of supplies worldwide, Venezuela found itself in deep financial trouble.

In 1983, the bolívar, Venezuela's currency, was devalued on what is now dubbed Black Friday, sparking a severe economic crisis in the country. The following year, Jaime Lusinchi took over as president, but his government did little to solve the nation's deep-seated financial problems. Corruption became endemic and poverty increased dramatically.

By the end of Lusinchi's presidency in 1989, Venezuela was effectively bankrupt. Carlos Andrés Pérez was elected again on a mandate to initiate economic reforms, but his neoliberal shock therapy policies proved resoundingly unpopular with the public, triggering the Caracazo: the wave of protests, massacres, riots and looting that began in late February 1989 and continued into the following month.

The IMF-backed neoliberal economic reforms, which ranged from eliminating price controls to part-privatisation of the oil industry, continued despite the uprising. They prompted one Hugo Chávez (pictured), who was at the time a lieutenant-colonel in the Venezuelan army, to attempt a coup in 1992, which resulted in his imprisonment.

President Pérez was impeached for corruption not long after, and Rafael Caldera (pictured) was voted in again in 1993. Amid an economy in dire straits, Venezuela's banks failed in 1994 (as a consequence of the neoliberal financial policies enacted by Pérez) and had to be bailed out by the government. Exchange and price controls were reinstated, but the economy remained in chaos.

In real terms, workers' incomes halved by the late 1990s compared to 1970. Between 1984 and 1995, the percentage of Venezuelans living below the poverty line soared from 36% to 66%, while extreme poverty more than tripled. Needless to say, crime became rampant and corruption was everywhere.

Venezuela's financial fortunes failed to turn around during the latter half of the 1990s. Chávez, who had been pardoned for the coup attempt and released from prison, entered politics and campaigned on an extreme left-wing ticket for the 1998 presidential election, promising to eradicate the now widespread poverty and end the corruption that was plaguing the country.

Chávez won the election with 56.2% of the popular vote, and promptly changed the name of the country to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in honour of the revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar. The new president then set about dismantling the pro-market reforms enacted by Pérez, focusing much of his attention on the country's oil industry.

Clueless about how the industry worked, Chávez placed his cronies in prominent positions within PDVSA, the state-controlled oil monopoly, and pretty much used it as a piggy bank to fund his socialist welfare projects. Depleted of cash, PDVSA was unable to invest in heavy oil extraction – the country's light oil supplies had been greatly depleted – and production plummeted. The strongman leader assumed the slowdown in supply would raise prices, but he was sorely mistaken.

While fairly large numbers of Venezuelans were lifted out of extreme poverty in the early and mid-2000s, Chávez's policies simply weren't sustainable. When global oil prices crashed in 2008, shortages of basic goods in the country became widespread and inflation went through the roof. Ironically, the very people Chávez set out to help, the country's poor, ended up suffering the most.

The misguided wealth redistribution policies enacted under Chávez harmed the country's economy, civil liberties were curtailed and crime exploded under his administration. The murder rate in Venezuela, for instance, increased from an already high 19 per 100,000 in 1999 to an estimated 75 per 100,000 in 2011.

Chávez, who was idolised by much of Venezuela's urban and rural poor, changed the constitution so he could stand for election a third time and was voted in again in October 2012 with a questionable 92% of the popular vote. Seriously ill with cancer, however, the controversial leader died five months after assuming power.

Following the death of Chávez, Nicolás Maduro narrowly won a disputed election and was sworn in as president on 19 April 2013. The beleaguered country was dealt a painful blow the following year when global oil prices nosedived. Since then, the economic situation in Venezuela has gone from bad to worse to absolutely horrendous.

In 2017, the Venezuelan economy was 35% smaller than it was in 2013 and GDP per capita had shrunk by a whopping 40%. Shockingly, over the past few years the Venezuelan economy has contracted more than that of the US during the Great Depression and the economy of Russia following the fall of communism. The crisis has left 80% of the population in food insecurity according to a 2018 nationwide study.

Venezuela is one of a number of countries that used to be rich but are now poor

For the year 2018, inflation was at a staggering 130,060% according to Venezuela’s central bank. Thankfully the rate of inflation dropped sharply to 9,585.5% for the year 2019, after the government relaxed the stringent regulations that had been in place for 15 years, as well as sharply reducing the circulation of the bolivar currency. However hunger remains widespread, and many have resorted to eating their pets and rifling through rubbish bins for food.

These photos show the cities where prosperity and poverty are neighbours

Maduro's wrong-footed policies, which include refusing aid from non-socialist nations, have only made the nation's lot more hopeless. With the support of the US, EU and numerous countries in Latin America and the rest of the world, centre-left opposition leader Juan Guaidó has declared himself interim president, but Maduro refuses to budge, and the appalling situation in Venezuela has worsened even further.

Discover the world's least and most corrupt countries

As Guaidó and his backers believed Maduro would finally fall at the end of April 2019, the opposition leader called for a military uprising. But while tens of thousands of citizens showed up for a general strike, too few soldiers and members of the government followed. Instead violence escalated over several days in February 2019, leading to more than 200 injured protestors and even four dead. Guaidó has since started exploring alternatives to oust Maduro which haven't been successful as yet.

Years of corruption and mismanagement increasingly lead to widespread electricity outages across the country, with particularly bad shortages in March and July last year, which left millions without power. While the government blamed the blackouts on an "electromagnetic attack" by the US and the opposition, experts warn severe outages could become normal. The July blackouts affected about 80% of the country, causing chaos in the cities. Traffic lights and the subway stopped working and hospitals were without any power.

To pile the pressure on Maduro, in August 2019 US government broadened economic sanctions against Venezuela. The Trump administration froze all Venezuelan assets in the US, barred transactions with its authorities and imposed sanctions on individuals close to Maduro. In March 2020, President Trump announced a $15 million (£12m) bounty on President Maduro on charges of drug trafficking.

Countries the US trades most with

To add to Venezuela’s problems, coronavirus has triggered an oil price crash, with global oil prices falling to their lowest level in 18 years. This had been worsened by a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, which broke out when Saudi Arabia failed to convince Russia to reduce its oil production. The ultra-low oil prices mean it’s not economically viable to keep pumping oil out of the ground in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has gone against the advice of world leaders and intensified sanctions on Venezuela. These sanctions supposedly have exemptions on humanitarian aid, enacted by the Obama administration, but in reality they still make it difficult for aid to reach Venezuelans. “In a context of global pandemic, impeding medical efforts in one country heightens the risk for all of us,” said Michelle Bachelet, the UN commissioner for human rights. Pictured is Venezuela's Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez, holding a pamphlet which reads “The Sanctions are a Crime”.

Although Venezuela had just a few hundred recorded cases of COVID-19 at last count (although the real figure could be much higher), even prior to the crisis healthcare staff had reported shortages of equipment and medicine. Dr Oscar Noguera, an internist and director of Ancora Humanistas, an NGO in Venezuela, told Al Jazeera: "The number of intensive care beds available in the country is barely close to 80." The country is already in crisis mode after years of economic hardship and sadly is frighteningly ill-prepared to deal with this massive challenge to public health.

Now see some other countries' economies hardest hit by coronavirus