Deported Venezuelans Sent To Hotel Santuario La Llanada After Quakes Leave Hundreds Missing

Twin earthquakes in Venezuela killed hundreds and left many missing, and the crisis intensified for deported Venezuelans who were taken to a government-run hotel in La Guaira before the buildings collapsed.

Construction worker Anderson Daniel Salcedo, who spent three months in US immigration detention before boarding a repatriation flight last Wednesday, arrived at Maiquetia airport near Caracas and was sent with more than 140 other returning migrants, including seven children, to Hotel Santuario La Llanada on a hilltop overlooking the blue Caribbean.

ABC News

Relatives said the hotel was toppled by Venezuela’s strongest quakes in more than a century in coastal La Guaira state, and Reuters reported that the government says at least 1,750 people were killed, with more than 850 buildings flattened or damaged and some 16,000 homeless.

Survivors and families described withheld phones and documents as complicating efforts to find and identify people, and Reuters quoted the Return to the Homeland Grand Mission posting on X: "You are not alone."

In Maracaibo, Lisbeth Portillo told AP that she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees after the earthquakes struck, and she said, "there was no communication."

Four days after the quakes, rescue teams raced to pull survivors from rubble in La Guaira, where the government reported 1,450 dead Sunday afternoon while Venezuelans criticized the response as inadequate and overshadowed by civilian-led rescue efforts.

Jason Mercano, a civilian working with rescue teams, said, "We've never given up hope," as he described communicating with family buried under the rubble.

AP News

The Scripps News report said the government reported more than 2,600 rescue workers from around the world had arrived with trained search dogs and machinery, and it also cited authorities saying more than 770 buildings had totally or partially collapsed.

In parallel, Reuters described how families said official information was hard to obtain after deportees were taken to Hotel Santuario La Llanada, and it quoted Grand Mission messaging on X: "Today we embrace each other in grief."

AP also reported that survivors said more than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in the hotel when earthquakes struck, and it said the Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.

As the migration drama shifted after the earthquakes, Folha de S.Paulo described internal displacement in La Guaira, where a former stadium held 1,730 people, or at least 300 families, sleeping under improvised structures.

The report said Wilmarys González, 45, had been at the improvised shelter since the day of the earthquakes on Wednesday the 24th, and it described her losing four relatives and later hearing a cousin’s voice until Thursday at 5:30 a.m.

Folha de S.Paulo reported that police officers distributed water bottles, and it said the World Central Kitchen was setting up a food truck to distribute meals, with Venezuela response director Olivier Chastelain saying, "warm dishes are distributed."

The same report said there is no forecast for when displaced residents can return and quoted Eduardo Sanchez, a 70-year-old retiree, saying, "We have no date to return."

It also cited official estimates that the number of confirmed deaths rose to 1,943 and the number of injured to 10,571, while the report said teams like UNHCR and IOM were operating in affected locations.