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Washington has for months been threatening military action against Venezuela — but when the blasts began before dawn on Saturday, they took residents by surprise.
First, the capital Caracas was rocked by a loud explosion at about 2.30am and then what residents described as a kind of blast wave. A series of further loud bangs followed, jolting people from their sleep.
“You can see the reflection of the flames and the smoke,” said Daniela, a Caracas resident living just outside the city centre, after the dramatic early-morning aerial bombardment.
Defence minister Vladimir Padrino said the US had “profaned our sacred soil” in Fuerte Tiuna, a military installation, as well as Caracas and the states of Miranda, Aragua and La Guaira with its strikes, which followed months of US military build-up in the region.
The Americans had “struck with missiles and rockets shot from combat helicopters in civilian neighbourhoods, for which we are collecting information regarding injured and dead”, he added.
The strikes appeared to have targeted military installations and strategic infrastructure such as telephone towers, said Daniela, who did not want her full name to be published.
Videos shared on social media showed several helicopters flying low against the city as repeated explosions lit up the skyline and plumes of smoke could be seen.
Images showed panicked residents fleeing and armed government supporters on the streets of the Venezuelan capital. According to residents, the explosions lasted for about an hour.
Then came an eerie silence.
And then the announcement by US President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform that Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro had been captured with his wife and flown out of the country.
The US appeared to have deposed a Latin American leader for the first time since its invasion of Panama in 1989.
Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s vice-president, said Maduro’s whereabouts were not known and demanded that Trump provide “proof of life”.
Maduro has ruled the oil-rich Caribbean nation since 2013, when he took the helm following the death of Hugo Chávez, who launched the country’s socialist “Bolivarian revolution” and was president from 1999 to 2013.
Many streets in the capital were deserted on Saturday morning despite calls by the government for people to turn out to defend the country’s national sovereignty.
“Let’s get out on the streets all of us who can. We’re going to mobilise our people,” said interior minister Diosdado Cabello. “These rats attacked and they will regret this all their lives.”
Government-aligned paramilitaries known as colectivos have already been dispatched in recent weeks to poor neighbourhoods in Caracas to snuff out dissent in former government strongholds.
A motorcycle taxi driver said that “colectivos” were restricting movement around the city on Saturday morning, and that he and his colleagues would not venture outside. Some residents reported internet failures, while images showed some streets without power.
“A lot of people might be saying ‘finally — this is the beginning of the end’. But I don’t know,” said Daniela.
“We’ve been in this mess for 25 years. It’s been too many years of nothing happening.”
Additional reporting by Joe Daniels in Rio de Janeiro
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