These Venezuelans were deported by the US on the same day the deadly earthquakes hit. Now their relatives want answers | CNN

La Guaira, Venezuela —

Relatives are desperately searching for answers after a hotel holding more than 100 Venezuelans who were deported by the US on Wednesday collapsed during deadly earthquakes that same evening.

A deportation flight from Miami to Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar International Airport carrying 146 people, including 19 women and 7 children, landed at 10:22 a.m. local time Wednesday, according to Venezuelan authorities and ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative by Human Rights First which tracks deportation flights.

The deportees were taken to Hotel Santuario in La Guaira, a coastal city north of the capital, Caracas. Hours later, two once-in-a-century earthquakes struck Venezuela within seconds of each other, causing widespread damage across La Guaira, killing at least 1,700 people, with many more still missing.

Some of the deportees survived the hotel’s collapse, but many remain trapped in the rubble.