ELAINE DE VALLE, JENNIFER BABSON AND ANDRES VIGLUCCI

 An intensive Coast Guard search for 30 Cubans missing at sea ominously turned up an overturned speedboat southeast of Key West and, a few miles away, a cooler and other floating debris, but no survivors on Tuesday.

 Even as the Coast Guard said it would continue looking through the night and into the morning today, the find was dismaying for several Miami relatives of the missing.

 They have been clinging to increasingly slender hopes since the search was launched on Sunday, one day after their relatives left Cuba on a smuggler's speedboat but
 failed to arrive in Florida.

 ``My hope died,'' said Katerín Arcia, lips trembling and eyes downcast and weary from weeping, as she contemplated the possible fate of her cousin Julio César Musibay, 33, who she believes was on the overdue boat. ``It's been too many hours.

 ``It's as if the sea swallowed them up.''

 If confirmed, the toll would constitute the single deadliest smuggling tragedy out of Cuba. The previous greatest loss of life of Cuban immigrants in the Florida Straits
 occurred in December 1998, when a boat capsized off Elliott Key, drowning 14 people.

 Authorities said determining how many people might have been on this latest ill-fated venture was difficult because few family members had contacted the government. The U.S. attorney's office Tuesday night issued an appeal for family members to come forward.

 ``Federal law enforcement is aggressively investigating. . . . We need the community to help us,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloyma Sanchez.

 According to Miami relatives, at least a dozen children may have been on the boat, which they say left from the small town of Bahía Honda in northwestern Cuba.

 Two families there also endured an agonizing wait for news of loved ones they believe were aboard the doomed speedboat -- Adriel Figueroa, 26, a fisherman who left behind his wife and young daughter, and Eunice Carrasco Rodríguez, 24.

 Asked by an Associated Press reporter whether he knew who organized the voyage, Eunice's father, Leonardo Carrasco, said: ``If I knew I would kill him.''

 Coast Guard officials could not say with certainty that the capsized boat, located by a plane at 11:20 a.m. Tuesday, was the missing vessel. But it appeared likely,
 spokesman Luis Diaz said.

 ``Our command center isn't 100 percent certain that this is the boat, but we suspect that it is,'' Diaz said.

 The capsized vessel matched the description provided by Miami relatives -- a white hull, about 30 feet in length, with twin outboard engines.

 At about 1 p.m., two Coast Guard cutters, two helicopters and another plane arrived to assist in the search over a wide area around the overturned boat, which was found 47 miles southeast of Key West.

 Crews spotted two debris fields, one five miles north of the vessel and another nine miles northeast. Diaz had no details on the first. Chillingly, the second consisted of life jackets, tarps and a cooler. No bodies have been seen.

 Rough seas complicated the effort, making it impossible for crews to right the boat to search for confirming evidence, Diaz said. He did not know whether any debris had been recovered.

 Vessels and aircraft using radar and spotlights, and crews equipped with night-vision goggles and heat-seeking scanners, were to continue the search overnight, the
 Coast Guard said. A decision will be made today on whether to suspend the search.

 ``We are continuing to search because we think there is still hope, but eventually we will have to stop,'' Diaz said. ``By morning, we will have searched over 50,000 square miles.''

 Other clandestine voyages out of Cuba have ended in tragedy as exiles increasingly turn to professional smugglers, who often overload their boats.

 Most trips take place during the relatively calm summer months, but they can occur anytime seas are smooth. Two years ago, almost to the day, Cuban rafter Elián
 González was rescued after the rickety boat carrying him, his mother and 12 others sank.

 ``This has to stop,'' Diaz said. ``I don't know how many innocent children have to be lost at sea because of smuggling.''

 Authorities said smuggling from Cuba had declined since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But a federal agent who investigates migrant smuggling said he anticipates an
 increase if fairly calm seas continue to prevail, especially after Hurricane Michelle hit Cuba.

 On Tuesday, a 29-foot boat launched from Biscayne Bay was intercepted by the Florida Marine Patrol as it headed south into the Keys. Three Cuban Americans were aboard the boat, which had extra fuel and twin outboard engines. They were questioned by Border Patrol agents in Marathon, resulting in one man's detention on immigration violations, the agent said.

 Some Miami family members of the missing insist they had no contact with smugglers. Lázaro Piedra said he learned from relatives in Cuba that his sister, Ana Gloria
 Piedra, 28, her husband Roberto Lemus, 29, and their 10-year-old daughter Gracy had left on a boat. He held out hope they would be found.

 Maria Boza, however, said she feared her stepson, Jindrid Boza, 19, was gone for good.

 The one relative of the missing to acknowledge dealing with a smuggler said he now regrets that he ever agreed to the trip.

 Carlos Montané, 40, of Hialeah said he promised to pay smugglers $16,000 to bring his ex-wife, Yaquelín Castro, and 8-year-old daughter Claudia Montané Castro from Cuba. Both are among the missing.

 ``It's a living death for me,'' he said.

 ``I've done all this for her,'' he said of his daughter. ``What do I do now if she's gone? I can't live all my life with this guilt. I can't! I can't!''

 His former father-in-law said he had to take a gun away from Montané after he became despondent.

 ``He was going to shoot himself,'' David Castro said. ``I was holding him down and trying to answer the cellular phone, and then the house phone would ring. It was crazy. It was like that till 6 in the morning.''

 Just 10 blocks away, at the Hialeah home of Arcia, a candle burned in front of a statue of San Lázaro as the missing man's aunt, Consuelo Rangel, prayed for him.

 ``We don't know if they're alive or dead. I can't keep on like this. It drives you crazy. I just want to know,'' said Rangel, whose sister in Cuba was ``desperate'' for news of her son.

 ``I keep thinking, `God, let them be on a key. God, let us get a call from Cuba to tell us that they have been jailed.' Because at least they would be alive.''

 Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
 

                                   © 2001