Venezuelan deportees trapped as SEBIN holding facility collapses after La Guaira earthquake
Earthquake struck La Guaira hours after a plane carrying 146 Venezuelan deportees arrived, collapsing a SEBIN holding facility and leaving many trapped or dead.
A plane carrying 146 Venezuelan deportees landed in Caracas and its passengers were moved to a state-run holding facility in La Guaira just hours before a powerful earthquake struck, reducing the concrete refuge to rubble and trapping dozens. Survivors and relatives say the deportees — 120 men, 19 women and seven children — were welcomed on arrival but then taken away from public view to a SEBIN-run building where they were told they would be released after processing. The quake hit as dusk fell, turning a planned homecoming into a scene of chaos, mass casualties and frantic family searches.
Plane arrival and transfer to SEBIN facility
The deportation flight arrived in Caracas on a weekday, and Venezuelan officials recorded arrival footage as the passengers disembarked and were processed at the airport. Shortly after landing, the deportees were transported to a four-storey concrete facility perched on a hill in La Guaira, the state hardest hit by the quake. Relatives said the detainees were placed in bunk rooms and told they would be released the next day, a promise that was never fulfilled as the earthquake struck within hours.
Families later reported that the deportees carried identifying bracelets issued at the airport, which became a key means of identifying bodies amid the damage. Many relatives immediately began traveling to La Guaira to seek information and to demand access to the site where their loved ones had been held.
Collapse of SEBIN-run refuge and immediate aftermath
The facility where the deportees were held was operated by SEBIN, Venezuela’s intelligence services, an agency long associated with detentions and internal security operations. Survivors described the four-storey structure as concrete with a brick roof that suffered catastrophic structural failure when the ground began to shake. Walls and ceilings fell inward, creating bottlenecks in stairwells and corridors that left many trapped beneath heavy rubble.
Witnesses said rescue efforts at the site were limited in the immediate hours after the collapse, and that some relatives were kept from entering the cordoned area. International rescue teams arrived days later with search dogs and excavators, but families said the delay compounded their anguish as they sifted through morgues and hospitals for signs of the deportees.
Survivor accounts of panic, entrapment and rescues
Several survivors recounted frantic scenes inside the collapsing building, describing people scrambling toward exits as corridors filled with dust and debris. One woman said she was pinned when a wall fell on her legs and dug herself out after nearly an hour of yelling for help. Another survivor described being among about 20 people piled together in a hallway, with roughly a dozen managing to escape through a shaft of light where the rubble opened.
Reports from hospitals include severe injuries sustained by some survivors, including at least one young man who underwent amputations after being pulled from the wreckage more than a day after the quake. Accounts also indicate that some SEBIN officers and facility personnel were among the casualties, complicating both rescue and information-sharing efforts.
Families organise and press for answers through ‘Vuelo 164’
Bereaved relatives from across Venezuela converged on La Guaira in the days after the disaster, using social media and a WhatsApp group known as Vuelo 164 — the flight identification assigned by officials — to coordinate searches and share photographs of missing loved ones. Many described agonising searches through crowded morgues, hoping to locate the identifying bracelets or tattoos that would confirm a relative’s identity.
One mother who had prepared a surprise welcome for her son instead identified his remains at a morgue and held a rushed burial as decomposition made long delays impossible. Other families remain in limbo, pressing authorities for lists of detainees and the locations where recovered bodies have been taken.
Government response and criticism over transparency
Relatives and survivors say information from Venezuelan authorities has been limited and at times contradictory, with phone lines provided for inquiries reportedly down and access to the collapsed site restricted. Some survivors also reported being warned by officials not to speak publicly about conditions inside the facility. Families have urged clearer communication and faster recovery work as they await word on missing relatives.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not publicly confirm whether deportation flights would be paused following the quake, and flight-tracking records show no immediate departures to Venezuela in the days after the disaster. The collapse of the holding facility and the difficulties faced by relatives have intensified scrutiny of both the conditions in which deportees are held on return and the timeliness of official search-and-rescue efforts.
The large-scale destruction in La Guaira has pushed Venezuela’s national death toll past a grim threshold and multiplied the challenges for emergency services, hospitals and morgues across the region. Families of returned migrants now face the double trauma of mourning relatives while seeking accountability for how and where they were processed on their return.
As search teams continue to comb affected areas and families wait for definitive lists of the missing, relatives and survivors are calling for transparent reporting, expedited identification of victims and an examination of procedures that placed newly returned deportees in a facility that was overwhelmed by the quake. The fate of many deportees remains unresolved, and the catastrophe has reopened questions about protection, repatriation practices and the responsibilities of both sending and receiving authorities in crisis situations.
