{"id":519497,"date":"2026-06-26T13:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519497\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T13:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T13:02:10","slug":"far-from-home-its-that-moment-of-anguish-venezuelans-in-ireland-search-for-family-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/519497\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Far from home, it\u2019s that moment of anguish\u2019: Venezuelans in Ireland search for family \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Laura Chacon (48) first became aware that two earthquakes hit her home city of Caracas in Venezuela<\/a> when her husband saw it on his phone at about midnight early on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

She turned on her phone and saw a large number of text messages and immediately tried to contact her 74-year old mother who lives in the city.<\/p>\n

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit about 160km west of Caracas<\/a> on Wednesday evening, followed less than a minute later by a magnitude 7.5 magnitude tremor, according to the US Geological Survey.<\/p>\n

Initially, her mother was in so much shock she could not answer the phone, but her neighbours made contact with Chacon and her siblings to let them know she was okay.<\/p>\n

She received images showing the destruction to her mother\u2019s home. She said it is unliveable.<\/p>\n

Chacon said waiting to hear from her mother was the \u201cmost stressful situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you are far from home, far from your family, it\u2019s that moment of anguish that you don\u2019t know what is happening. The moment is extremely concerning and is extremely worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her mother\u2019s husband was watching a World Cup game and he decided to get up to get himself a drink. Moments later, part of the wall collapsed on the chair he had been sitting on.<\/p>\n

Her mother and her husband spent the night sitting outside with blankets with their neighbours.<\/p>\n

She said knowing her mother was safe was \u201ca miracle\u201d after seeing photos of the house.<\/p>\n

\"LauraLaura Chacon’s mother’s earthquake-damaged home in Caracas, Venezuela <\/p>\n

Chacon feels \u201clucky\u201d that her mother and her husband are alive as \u201cso many\u201d people are under rubble and missing.<\/p>\n

Chacon moved to Ireland almost 14 years ago to learn English. She lives in Dublin and works as a calligraphy artist and stationary designer.<\/p>\n

In the cul-de-sac of houses, her mother\u2019s house was the most damaged. She has since been staying with neighbours, and Chacon\u2019s brother, who lives in a different Venezuelan city, will travel to Caracas to take his mother and her husband to his home.<\/p>\n

At least 235 people were confirmed dead and more than 4,000 injured.<\/p>\n

Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar International Airport in Venezuela has closed due to damage caused by the earthquakes.<\/p>\n

Marisabel De Castro (36) has seen videos of places where she grew up in Caracas \u201ctotally destroyed\u201d by the earthquakes.<\/p>\n

De Castro\u2019s family, other than her mother and two brothers, lives in Caracas and their homes are badly damaged.<\/p>\n

\"MarisabelMarisabel De Castro lives in Dublin but is from Caracas and has many family members living in the city <\/p>\n

She moved to Ireland to study 13 years ago. She now works in the technology industry and lives in Dublin.<\/p>\n

She said the earthquakes hit at about 6pm (local time) \u2013 which was during the night in Ireland. She became aware of what had happened when she awoke to many messages in her family group chat at 6.30am on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThankfully, my immediate family are okay. They were able to get out of the buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said her family was able to spend the night with other family members.<\/p>\n

A website set up to track missing people listed more than 39,000 people as unaccounted for as of 5.45pm (Irish time) on Thursday.<\/p>\n

One of the unaccounted for people is De Castro\u2019s cousin of a cousin who lives in one of the buildings that collapsed<\/p>\n

She said rescue teams in the country are \u201cnot equipped\u201d to deal with an emergency like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe images are really, really shocking. So, so many buildings are collapsed. Even if you don\u2019t have family affected, it is shocking.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I wasn\u2019t one of the ones that woke up mourning a loved one, I feel the pain of everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said that seeing as it was a public holiday in Venezuela, many people were affected who do not live in Caracas.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said it is monitoring the situation in Venezuela \u201cfollowing two major earthquakes, several aftershocks and the declaration of a state of emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"LauraLaura Chacon said her mother’s Caracas home is unliveable <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have updated our travel advice and stand ready to provide consular assistance to any Irish citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the department\u2019s website, Venezuela currently has a status of \u201cdo not travel\u201d, which is the highest level of warning.<\/p>\n

It says: \u201cYou should not travel to this country or territory. If you are already in this location, you should consider leaving if it is safe to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee also said Ireland stands ready to help in the global response. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to monitor the situation, remaining in close communication with our EU and humanitarian partners to assess urgent needs as more information becomes available,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s Embassy in Bogot\u00e1 is in contact with Irish citizens in Venezuela and stands ready to provide consular assistance if required.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Laura Chacon (48) first became aware that two earthquakes hit her home city of Caracas in Venezuela when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1844,61,60,43,92549],"class_list":["post-519497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}