Editor’s note: This story first appeared on Telemundo 51. Watch the full story here in Spanish.
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It’s been a week since two earthquakes devastated Venezuela, leaving thousands dead and more than 10,000 people injured, buildings reduced to heaps of rock and a humanitarian crisis in their wake.
And the flights that had only just begun to operate between Miami and Venezuela were suspended again—until this Thursday.
Laser Airlines resumed a route to General José Antonio Anzoátegui International Airport in Barcelona, Venezuela from Miami. Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía remains closed.
Meanwhile, at Miami International Airport, a Venezuelan man hoped to be able to reunite with family members before it’s too late.
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“It did depress me a bit. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to fly, that I wasn’t going to be able to see my family again since I have a terminal illness, a terminal cancer,” Leomar José Herrera said in Spanish. “To have a new hope to be able to travel through another route is incredible.”
Herrera said he was given three months to live and wants to be with his family.
For others passengers, the return to Venezuela is loaded with grief.
“We want to get there. We want to get home,” Gabriel Masiel said. “It’s not easy what happened there. My wife lost six family members.”
Gauty Freites said he’s also traveling with a heavy heart for friends who are still living in uncertainty.
“My family is OK, but among my friends, there have been people affected, whose relatives are still missing,” he said. “We have to keep trusting in God to move forward, despite the situation.”
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