More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.
A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Caracas hours before Wednesday’s earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights.
Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.
“We walked about 5km, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.
They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.
“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” said Portillo. “I am traumatised,” she said after a pause, weeping.