Venezuela’s Viaducto 1, a key bridge on the only highway route that links the vast city of Caracas to its international airport on the northern coast has collapsed down a deep Andean ravine with a huge crash. Holding my breath, it was this bridge I rode out of Caracas across on my last day there in late December. A thin access road in the valley has since been constructed but I do not know its fate since its nominal opening in late February.

Miguel Octavio has spectacular photos and along with Daniel Duquenal, analyses of what this actually means for Venezuela’s democracy. It’s about a whole lot more than a bridge to an airport.

Read it here and here.

UPDATE: Alek Boyd has a great new article up describing the bridge’s historic significance, with old news photos and clips showing its construction in 1950-53. What a loss! Read it here.

UPDATE: Noticiero Digital has tons of destruction and rubble pictures here.

UPDATE: And here’s a rarity: VenezuelaToday is up today and has loads of links on the Viaduct crash. UPDATE: DEFINITELY click the page go see it, the site has a photo of the viaduct at the exact moment of the collapse, the snapping beams and dust going down, down, down. Check it out here.

UPDATE: Miguel has a spectacular new sequence of bridge crash photos, the most complete available, taken here.