Relief, danger, waiting for information: Caracas locals react to US strikespublished at 15:19 GMT
15:19 GMT
Kristina Volk
Live reporter
Image source, Getty Images
I have been speaking to several people living in Caracas following the US strikes. Here’s what I’ve heard:
‘Too dangerous to go outside’
Daniela, who did not want to give her real name, lives close to La Carlota – a military airfield that was hit in the strikes.
Daniela says it is too dangerous to go out because “although Maduro has gone all the rest of them are still in charge”.
Daniela says Venezuelans were expecting a US military operation for quite a while and adds that for her, the overnight strikes are “almost a relief to know it had finally happened”.
‘I am so happy my chest hurts’
Like others in Venezuela, Maria, not her real name, had also been expecting a US military strike but was surprised how early in the new year it happened.
She says “I am so happy my chest hurts”.
Outside her home in Caracas the streets are quiet at the moment, and she says she is waiting to hear from opposition leader MarÃa Corina Machado and the US President Donald Trump to get more information.
‘Explosions like nothing I’ve heard before’
“It is kinda surreal” says Alirio, a translator in Caracas. He describes the explosions sounding like thunder and says it was like “nothing I had heard before”.
The sky he says “turned reddish and it felt like divine intervention”.
At the moment, it is eerily calm outside as “no one wants to go out. Rumour has it people who are in the streets are being arrested”, he says.