AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Killed by the Venezuelan Quakes Just Hours After Being Deported From U.S.Many of the 146 Venezuelans deported from the United States the day the earthquake struck are feared dead.Listen · 9:47 min The damaged state-run holding facility for deportees, on a hilltop in La Guaira, Venezuela, was meant to be a way station for a group that arrived there on Wednesday, June 26. Most of them never made it home. Credit...Vantor, via ReutersJuly 1, 2026The plane carrying 146 Venezuelans deported from the United States arrived at Venezuela’s main airport last Wednesday — just eight hours before the ground began to violently shake.Venezuelan officials welcomed the deportees — 120 men, 19 women and 7 children — and recorded carefully staged videos celebrating their arrival after spending weeks in U.S. detention centers.Most, if not all, were then ferried away from the cameras to a state-run holding facility, where they settled into bunk beds and were told they would be released the next day, after being processed, two deportees told The New York Times.But as the sun began to set, the building started to sway, and what was supposed to be a bittersweet homecoming turned into one of the countless devastating tragedies to emerge from the back-to-back earthquakes that ravaged Venezuela last week.Inside, the deportees screamed and scrambled to escape as the walls and ceilings fell around them, burying most of them beneath a hulking pile of rubble, two survivors told The Times.Ninoska Gutiérrez Rodríguez, 45, said she rushed out of the room where she had been placed with other women on the first floor and barreled down a hallway, pushed and pulled by other deportees desperate to flee, when a wall pinned her legs.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT