146 deportees arrived hours before magnitude-7.5 quake struck
Relatives of Venezuelan nationals deported from the United States last week are searching for loved ones after twin earthquakes struck the country hours after the deportees arrived, according to interviews with family members and survivors.
Flight 164, operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, landed in Caracas on June 24 with 146 Venezuelans on board, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First that tracks deportation flights. The flight included 19 women and seven children, the group said.
Less than eight hours later, a magnitude-7.2 foreshock and a magnitude-7.5 mainshock hit in rapid succession, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quakes killed at least 2,200 people, injured more than 10,000, and left 50,000 missing, according to UN figures. The area of La Guaira, where the deportees were being held, was particularly hard hit.
The deportees had been transferred by Venezuelan authorities to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in the port city of La Guaira after undergoing medical exams and receiving documentation, survivors said. The hotel collapsed when the earthquakes struck.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the BBC that “This flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home.” The spokesperson added: “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”
Abelardo Rincón, 23, had lived in the U.S. state of Georgia for six years, working at a car dealership, before his detention during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. He married and was expecting a daughter, his family said. After arriving in Venezuela, Rincón called his family from the hotel to say he was back. His grandfather, Jose Rincón, later traveled to a morgue in Caracas and viewed at least 200 bodies searching for him, he told BBC Mundo. He said Venezuelan authorities blocked him from visiting the hotel rubble, telling him there was “no life” at the site.
Darwin Eliecer Serrano Lopez, 35, called a cousin at 5:32 a.m. local time to say he had returned after four years in the United States. The first quake struck less than 30 minutes later, according to his cousin Paola Chacón. Lopez had been detained in Chicago and held in four detention centers before being placed on the flight, relatives said. Chacón told BBC Mundo she believed her cousin was dead, but added: “We are going to stay here until we can take his body home.”
Mildrey Sarazo, Lopez’s wife, said she had not seen her husband in three years and had not told their daughters, ages nine and 15, about his deportation or disappearance. “We want to bury our relatives,” she said. “We want them to hand him over so we can identify him and be certain.”
The family of Daniel Alejandro Nunez, 28, also struggled to find information. His stepfather, Jose Alejandro Abache, told BBC Mundo: “We’ve searched for him in hospitals, in morgues – everywhere.”
Lisbeth Portillo, 58, survived the hotel collapse. She told the Associated Press she was lying on a bed in a second-floor room shared with 16 other women when the building crumbled. “I saw the woman next to me start to fall… they were all screaming for help,” she said. “I was born again - God gave me a second chance.”
Anderson Daniel Salcedo, 22, was found alive at Caracas’s university hospital after being trapped under rubble for nearly two days, Reuters reported. His legs were amputated. Salcedo had lived in the United States for three years, sending money home. His grandmother, Marlene Lozano, said: “He spent 40 hours in that hole, he didn’t have an ID, they couldn’t account for him because he had no documents. We had no way to communicate with him and didn’t know anything.”
The Venezuelan government has posted phone numbers for families to call, but information has been limited in the wake of a disaster that destroyed buildings across the capital and coastal regions, leaving many families without answers, relatives said.