As Venezuela's earthquake death toll passed 1,430 over the weekend, a quieter tally took shape alongside it — the foreign citizens among the dead. But as embassies released their names and nationalities, a striking pattern emerged: almost none were visitors. The foreigners killed in La Guaira and Caracas were overwhelmingly long-term residents and dual nationals, the descendants of European immigrants who have called Venezuela home for generations.
No one embodies that more than the first foreign victim to be fully identified. Isabel Jara Noda, known to her community as "Chabela," was the Canary Islands government's official delegate in Venezuela and president of the Council of Spanish Residents there — the first woman to lead that consular advisory body, re-elected to a second term just weeks before she died. Born in La Guaira in 1957 to a family of Canarian emigrants, she had lived in the country for nearly her entire life. Her penthouse in the Macuto neighborhood, one of the worst-hit pockets of the coast, collapsed in the quakes; the Canary Islands government confirmed her body was recovered on June 26 and declared three days of official mourning. She was, in every sense, a resident — not a tourist.
The toll by nationality. Foreign-government counts have climbed steadily as identifications proceed, and they don't fully reconcile between sources. An early tally from the Spanish news agency EFE reported by ABC News put the figure at 18, but later national statements pushed it considerably higher:
- Portugal — Its foreign ministry initially reported that nine citizens had died; later compiled reporting put the toll as high as 28 Portuguese nationals or people of Portuguese descent, with dozens more missing. Most belong to Venezuela's large Madeiran community — Madeira's regional government noted its deep, generations-old ties to the country — meaning these were emigrant families, not travelers.
- Spain — At least five to six nationals confirmed dead, including Jara, with figures ranging from 80 to 119 Spaniards reported missing and at least 14 trapped, per the foreign ministry via CNN . Spain's count is dominated by Canary Islanders, an estimated 70,000 of whom and their descendants live in Venezuela.
- China — Beijing's embassy in Caracas, via state agency Xinhua, first confirmed two nationals killed ; later tallies cite up to eight. The embassy urged Chinese residents to guard against aftershocks.
- Italy — Rome confirmed the death of a 56-year-old man holding both Italian and Venezuelan citizenship, born in Caracas, killed by a building collapse in La Guaira; later reporting raised the Italian-Venezuelan toll to four. Italy estimates around 170,000 of its passport-holders live in the country.
- Brazil — A man and a woman confirmed dead by the foreign ministry, which is providing consular support to their families.
- Chile and the Dominican Republic — Two Chileans appeared in the EFE tally, and later reporting added a Dominican national.
The through-line is unmistakable: where residency is known, the foreign dead lived in Venezuela, many born there. The reasons are structural. Venezuela's economic and political collapse has gutted what little tourism it once had, so the coast around La Guaira and Caracas draws few foreign visitors. What it has instead is one of Latin America's densest concentrations of European-descended dual nationals — Italian, Portuguese, Spanish — woven into exactly the neighborhoods the earthquakes flattened. The quakes also struck on a national holiday marking the 1821 Battle of Carabobo, when most people were home, deepening the toll among residents.
That said, the picture is incomplete. Foreign tourists are yet to have been reported among the dead — but with more than 50,000 people still listed as missing, severed communications in La Guaira, and identifications continuing one family at a time, the counts above should be read as provisional and almost certainly low. Dual nationality also blurs the math: a single victim born in Caracas to Italian parents may be logged by Rome, by Caracas, or by both.
The named Venezuelan dead, meanwhile, have begun to put faces to the wider catastrophe. The Venezuelan Football Federation confirmed that 18-year-old Yimvert Berroteran, who played at the recent U-17 World Cup in Doha, was killed, along with young players Víctor Palacios and Razan Sijaa. Zulia FC defender Héctor Bello said on social media that his partner died shielding their toddler as their building came down. One Caracas resident who traveled to the coast to search for her father described what she found in Caraballeda as "straight out of a war zone."
For the families abroad, the wait is its own ordeal. The roughly 2,700 foreign rescuers now working alongside Venezuelan crews — from some two dozen countries — keep pulling survivors out, but the names emerging from the rubble are, so far, those of people who lived there. The foreign nationals Venezuela lost this week were, in the end, Venezuelans too.
