CARACAS: Venezuela’s interim leader has declared a state of emergency as two massive earthquakes caused buildings in the capital to crumble and forced the closure of the country’s main airport.
Delcy Rodriguez said 20 aftershocks had followed the earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, which struck the same area of Venezuela, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
The quakes triggered panic in the capital and drove people into the streets, AFP journalists saw.
“The stairs came away, the whole wall cracked. Things fell from the ceiling. It was horrible,” said 54-year-old bank employee Odalis Escalona.
It remained unknown if there were fatalities, but some people were injured and buildings had collapsed, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said earlier.
An AFP journalist saw a 22-story building completely destroyed in the capital’s Altamira neighborhood, where people cried out relatives’ names as volunteers climbed over the rubble.
The first quake, with an epicenter 21 kilometers west of the coastal town of Moron, occurred at 2204 GMT, USGS said. Within a minute, a 7.5-magnitude quake struck about 45 kilometers away.
“This earthquake was the second event in a doublet. This magnitude 7.5 mainshock was preceded by 39 seconds by a 7.2 foreshock,” USGS said.
The Maiquetia International Airport, located near Caracas, was closed due to “serious damage” to its infrastructure, Rodriguez said, with social media posts showing its severely damaged facilities.
The states of Trujillo, Carabobo, Miranda and La Guaira were the hardest hit, according to Cabello.
The strongest tremors in earthquake-prone Venezuela’s recent history occurred in the northeast in 1997, killing 73 people, and in Caracas in 1967, when 236 people died.
