Venezuela native Abelardo Rincón built a life for six years in the US state of Georgia – working in a car dealership, marrying and looking forward to the upcoming birth of his daughter – before US authorities detained him amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The 23-year-old’s bereft parents and pregnant wife waited for any and all news while he was held by American authorities, before he was put on a deportation flight to his homeland last month alongside more than 140 other Venezuelans.

He landed on 24 June and while still in custody, called his family back in Atlanta.

He and other deportees were being housed in a hotel near the coast.

Just hours later, twin earthquakes hit the country – killing at least 2,200 people, injuring more than 10,000 and, according to UN figures, leaving 50,000 missing.

Rincón, along with a number of fellow deportees from Flight 164, was among those missing.

And their devastated families were left to desperately search for any word about their loved ones – all after struggling to process the quick succession of arrest, detention, deportation, repatriation and, then, natural disaster.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees US immigration enforcement agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), shared a statement, but offered no details on the case when asked by the BBC.

“This flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home,” a DHS spokesperson told BBC on Tuesday. “When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.”

It’s unclear if the migrants were deported for crossing the border illegally, or for other reasons.

The Venezuelan government, meanwhile, has posted numbers for the general public to call, but information has been limited in the wake of such a devastating national disaster.

The flight passengers, which reportedly included 19 women and seven children, were being housed by Venezuelan authorities in Hotel Santuario La Llanada in the city of La Guaira after undergoing medical exams and getting documentation. The area has been particularly hard hit with widespread damage and collapsed buildings.

Many, like Rincón, had contacted family to let them know they were back in Venezuela – right before the earthquakes hit.

Rincón’s grandfather, Jose Rincón, told BBC Mundo that he viewed at least 200 bodies, including at a morgue in Caracas, searching for his 23-year-old grandson.

He even tried unsuccessfully to visit the remnants of the destroyed hotel, where his grandson and the other deportees were staying.

Access was blocked by Venezuelan authorities, who told the grandfather there was “no life” at the site.

“If we could just see what we need to see – if I could see the rubble, I’d be satisfied – but days have gone by and I still haven’t found him, alive or dead… So what am I supposed to do?” Rincón told the BBC.

Darwin Eliecer Serrano Lopez, 35, called a cousin at 05:32 local time to say he’d returned home after four years of living in the US. The first quake struck not even half an hour later.

“We drove all night,” said his cousin, Paola Chacón, whose brother had received the phone call first alerting the family that Serrano Lopez had returned to Venezuela.

Lopez had been originally detained in Chicago, then held in four detention centres before US authorities put him on the flight out of the country, relatives said.

Chacón resigned herself to the belief that her cousin was dead, she told BBC Mundo on Monday – with the family searching for nearly a week without any sign of him.

“So many days have passed… we aren’t getting any answers,” she said.

But “we are going to stay here until we can take [Darwin’s body] home”, she added.

The family of flight passenger Daniel Alejandro Nunez, 28 – who’d also called his mother upon returning to Venezuela while still in state custody – was struggling to make sense of conflicting reports, too.

“We’ve searched for him in hospitals, in morgues – everywhere,” his stepfather, Jose Alejandro Abache, told BBC Mundo.

For families already separated for years by immigration status, the potential loss of their loved ones – immediately following their involuntary return – has been unimaginable.

Mildrey Sarazo, wife of Darwin Serrano Lopez, hadn’t seen her husband in three years – and on Monday still had not told their daughters, aged nine and 15, about any of this.

She, too, was waiting for proof – and for the body of her husband who “didn’t want to come back yet” from the US.

“We want to bury our relatives,” she said, adding: “We want them to hand him over so we can identify him and be certain.”

Other Flight 164 passengers, however, survived the hotel collapse and were stunned by the series of events that left them climbing out of rubble in a country they thought they’d left far behind.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, was lying on a bed in a second-floor room shared with 16 other women when the building crumbled.

“I saw the woman next to me start to fall… they were all screaming for help,” she told the Associated Press news agency.

“I was born again – God gave me a second chance.”

Days went by before some families received word that relatives had made it out alive.

Relatives found Anderson Daniel Salcedo, 22, at Caracas’s university hospital and alerted his mother, who immediately travelled to the Venezuelan capital, Reuters reported, only to find they had already amputated his legs.

Salcedo had lived in the US for three years, sending money home, before he was put on Flight 164 – then trapped under rubble for nearly two days.

“He spent 40 hours in that hole, he didn’t have an ID, they couldn’t account for him because he had no documents,” his grandmother, Marlene Lozano, told Reuters.

“We had no way to communicate with him and didn’t know anything.”

“Here we are praying, asking God to give him strength and courage,” Lozano added. “We know he won’t be the same anymore – he’s missing his legs – but we love him, just the way he is.”