Video clips published by travelers and journalists, on Thursday morning, documented the moments of panic experienced by passengers and employees of Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetia, the main air gateway to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, during the two earthquakes that struck the country on Wednesday evening.
The scenes showed the collapse of parts of the airport’s ceilings, and passengers and workers fleeing from inside the terminals, amid a state of panic that followed the strong tremors that affected a number of Venezuelan states.
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The impact of the two earthquakes was not limited to the scenes filmed from inside the airport, as flight tracking data showed a clear disruption in air traffic, which included the cancellation of flights and a halt in take-offs and landings after the tremors.
The scenes showed parts of the ceiling falling inside the airport halls, while passengers and workers rushed outside in search of safe places, at a time when electricity was cut off in parts of the facility, coinciding with the continuing aftershocks.
Other clips also documented damage to the pedestrian bridges inside the parking lot, in addition to damage to the travel check-in counters belonging to the “Conviasa” company, as dust covered large parts of the airport halls.
The interim President of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, announced the temporary closure of Simón Bolívar International Airport, stressing that the facility had suffered severe damage to its infrastructure, and that the decision to suspend operations came to allow the damage to be assessed and to ensure the safety of travelers and workers, to which several companies responded and announced the suspension of flights to and from the Venezuelan capital.
The closure of the airport was part of a series of emergency measures taken by the authorities following the two earthquakes, which included suspending studies, stopping subway and railway services, and declaring a state of emergency in a number of affected states.
Air traffic
Navigational data from the Flight Aware platform, Thursday morning, showed that 15 canceled flights were recorded at Simón Bolívar International Airport.
According to flight tracking data on Flight Radar, the last arrival flight monitored by the unit was to Caracas Airport coming from San Antonio del Tachira, and landed at 5:48 pm local time on June 24, about 17 minutes before the main earthquake.
Later, the unit spotted a private plane that took off from Caracas towards Athens at 10:43 pm local time on the same day, and no planes had taken off or landed so far, an indication of operational disruption at the airport after the earthquake.
Other operational data for Caracas Airport shows a clear state of turmoil, as the Flighti platform displayed a state of “major problems” at the airport, indicating that there were no flights taking off or landing at the time of monitoring, with a large number of incoming and outgoing flights being cancelled.
emergency
In conjunction with the closure of the airport, Rodriguez declared a state of emergency in the country, and said that security and civil protection services were deployed to save lives and monitor the damage, while the government channel “Venezuela de TV” spoke about the activation of a national emergency authority to deal with the repercussions of the two earthquakes.
The authorities also activated the “FinApp” platform to receive citizens’ reports about missing persons and damage to homes and facilities, and linked the reports directly to official response efforts, in light of government talk about damage to public facilities and infrastructure after the earthquakes.
In the latest toll reported by the EFE agency on Rodriguez via the
The US Geological Survey had explained that Venezuela was exposed to a double earthquake series, which began with a tremor measuring 7.2 degrees, followed 39 seconds later by a main tremor measuring 7.5 degrees, while data from the Global Coordination Center for Disasters and Warnings estimated that about 2.4 million people were exposed to severe or higher tremors.
Data from the Global Coordination Center for Disasters and Warnings, based on data from the US National Earthquake Information Center, also indicate that a 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck Venezuela at 6:05 pm local time, at a depth of 10 kilometers, with an estimate that about 2.4 million people were exposed to high or higher shaking intensity.
