A video has gone viral on social media this week showing Ecuadorian officials blocking an airport runway. Officials has parked the trucks on the runway in order to stop a plane from Spain landing and evacuating Spanish nationals from the country, Reuters has reported.
According to a report by Fox News, the mayor of the city of Guayaquil in Ecuador confirmed her support for local officials in blocking off a runway at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport on Wednesday.
Take a look at the video of the plane below:The video footage was captured from a helicopter cockpit above the airport on Wednesday, and shows at least a dozen trucks parked on the landing strip, which had been strategically placed in order to prevent the plane from Spain landing.
The plane later managed to land successfully in Quito.
Despite protestations from the European Union, which is attempting to retrieve and evacuate European citizens, Ecuador has banned all incoming passenger flights from outside the country, in a bid to halt the further spread of the highly contagious coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Ecuador’s Ministry of Transport and has released a statement of disapproval condemning Mayor Cynthia Viteri for not allowing the plane to land.
The statement added that the plane in question, which was carrying only crew at the time the short video was filmed - was later able to pick up 170 Spanish passengers for a return flight from the capital city.
At the time of writing, there have now been 392,331 confirmed cases of COVID-19 across 114 countries worldwide, and a total of 17,156 deaths, according to John Hopkins University. Of these, 981 have occurred in Ecuador, and 18 people have died there thus far.
