A deportation flight from Miami carrying 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, arrived in Venezuela just hours before twin earthquakes struck. The group, which included construction worker Anderson Daniel Salcedo who had spent three months in U.S. immigration detention, was transported to a hotel in La Guaira.
The group was being held at the hotel when the tremors hit, triggering a desperate search for survivors and bodies buried beneath the rubble. Search efforts continue in the city of La Guaira for the deportees who were housed in the building at the time of the disaster.
The human toll includes a young man who was killed after having planned a reunion with his mother. Another man remains missing, having called a relative only minutes before the earthquakes occurred.