Madeira Mobilises Consular Help After Venezuela Earthquakes Kill Six With Island Roots

The Regional Government of Madeira (Governo Regional da Madeira) confirmed that six people with roots on the island have died in two powerful earthquakes that struck northern Venezuela on around 24 and 25 June 2026, as authorities on the Atlantic archipelago mobilised consular assistance for dozens more reported missing thousands of kilometres away.

The tremors, measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, had their epicentre near Montalbán, in the state of Carabobo, and were felt across the capital Caracas and the nearby port of La Guaira. Provisional figures cited by Venezuelan authorities put the toll at at least 188 dead and more than 1,500 injured, with over 10,000 people registered on an official missing-persons platform as families searched for relatives in the chaotic aftermath.

Among the confirmed dead are six people connected to Madeira: two Portuguese citizens and four Luso-descendants, the term used for people of Portuguese ancestry born abroad. A further 56 Portuguese nationals and Luso-descendants have been reported missing, the regional government said, leaving many families on the island anxiously awaiting news.

Madeira Sends Help to Caracas

Miguel Albuquerque, President of the Regional Government of Madeira, said many Madeirans in the affected areas had been "unreachable for several hours" (incontactáveis há várias horas) following the earthquakes. He announced that he was sending his chief of staff to Caracas to coordinate support on the ground and to help locate those still unaccounted for.

The island's Serviço Regional de Proteção Civil (Regional Civil Protection Service) offered its assistance as part of the response. The disaster also touched Portugal's aviation sector: 40 crew members from TAP (Portugal's flag carrier) and the airline Hi Fly were in Caracas when the earthquakes hit. One crew member suffered minor injuries, but the others were reported safe.

Deep Ties Between an Island and a Nation

For Madeira, the scale of the loss is intensely personal, reflecting one of the closest migration relationships in the Portuguese-speaking world. Venezuela is home to one of the largest Portuguese diaspora communities anywhere, and that community is heavily Madeiran in origin. Throughout the twentieth century, waves of islanders left Madeira's limited land and scarce opportunities for the oil-rich South American nation, building lives, businesses and families across Caracas and beyond.

The bond runs in both directions. Roughly 5 percent of Madeira's current population holds Venezuelan nationality, a striking figure that reflects decades of emigration followed by return migration, as economic and political crises in Venezuela prompted many families to come back to the island. The result is a web of kinship in which a great many Madeiran households have relatives, friends or business partners living in or around Caracas.

That intimacy is why a disaster on another continent has become a defining emergency for the regional government. Each missing person on the official list represents not a distant statistic but, for many on the island, a neighbour or a family member. As rescue efforts continue in Venezuela, Madeira's authorities have said they will keep working to account for every islander and Luso-descendant caught up in the catastrophe.