Both the Air Force and Space Force are helping support U.S. military emergency response efforts in Venezuela, where a pair of devastating earthquakes rattled the country June 24, killing at least 900 people.
Two Air Force C-17 airlifters are flying search-and-rescue teams to Venezuela, while another C-17 is delivering equipment to help move debris, according to a June 26 release from U.S. Southern Command.
Images released by SOUTHCOM and the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela show a C-17 from the 437th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., and another from the 305th Air Mobility Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., The third airlifter from the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.
The command said June 25 that C-130s will also be available to transport personnel and equipment.
Other aircraft involved in the relief effort include U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys and U.S. Army CH-47 Chinooks. The U.S. Navy is also sending two ships, the amphibious transport dock USS Fort Lauderdale and littoral combat ship USS Billings, to support operations.
Space Forces Southern, the Space Force’s component command in the region, “is providing satellite imagery of devastated areas to disaster relief planners in Venezuela to aid them in assessing where immediate live-saving and aid efforts are needed most and identifying what capability requests to prioritize,” SOUTHCOM said.
The Space Force has in the past leveraged its Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking program. (TacSRT), a marketplace where commercial suppliers share data of interest with military users. But it is not clear if Space Forces Southern used TacSRT in this case. SOUTHCOM did not immediately respond to a query.
The Venezuelan earthquakes struck with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 on the Richter scale, the strongest the country has experienced in a century, according to CBS News. The northern part of the country, including the capital of Caracas, was hit hardest.
