‘We turned off the lights and hid’: Venezuelans shocked by U.S. attacks in Caracas

A Venezuelan father of two was rocking his baby girl to sleep early Saturday morning when he heard the flight of multiple aircraft over the Caracas municipality of Baruta.

He assumed “by the speed and sound” that they could possibly be military. A few seconds later, he heard five continuous, loud explosions.

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“We turned off the lights and hid,” said the 35-year-old man, who lives in a residential area not far from key military and political facilities that the Venezuelan government said were attacked by the U.S.

The man, who spoke to the Miami Herald on the condition he not be identified for fear of reprisals, hurried his family to an upper floor of their residence and rushed to grab a Catholic rosary to pray.

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Around 2 a.m. Venezuelans began sharing videos on social media of helicopters and aircraft flying over Caracas at low altitude. Other videos showed tall columns of fire and smoke rising through the darkness.

According to people in Caracas and nearby towns, deafening explosions began to be heard in the Venezuelan capital and around the headquarters of the Nicolas Maduro government.

“I was awakened by the bombs. I felt the windows rumbling and the house was shaking,” said a resident of San Antonio de Los Altos, a town located on the outskirts of Caracas. “I still hear the airplanes flying over the skies”, she added around 3 a.m.

The Public Information Service, a group of independent Venezuelan journalists better known as SIP, reported that no less than 17 aircraft crossed the skies of Caracas among the many explosions, which appeared to target the airport of La Carlota, the 23 de Enero neighborhood, the Fuerte Tina military headquarters and the area of Higuerote.

There were also reports of power outages in some areas. Videos filmed by Caracas residents showed parts of the city in the dark and the shadows of what appeared to be helicopters and airplanes firing at targets on the ground.

A resident of a neighborhood near La Carlota, the main military air base in the Venezuelan capital, described one of the explosions at the site as “crazy,” after which “a large mushroom of smoke formed.”

Another area resident said the noise from the first explosions woke him up. “When I went out to the living room of my house to look out the window, I heard the hissing sound of a missile and there came a second loud explosion,” he said.

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There was no sign of an attack in Maracaibo, the second largest city after Caracas, about 400 miles from the capital.

Many relatives and friends in Venezuela called or texted to alert each other of the attacks in Caracas to share information and videos and to see if attacks were occurring elsewhere.

Maduro’s government declared a state of emergency around 3:30 a.m. in the face of a “very serious military aggression” by the United States and called on “all the social and political forces of the country to activate the mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

Maduro and other top members of the Venezuelan regime have said since September that a state of emergency would allow the Venezuelan leader to deploy the armed forces throughout the country, take over all service infrastructures, occupy strategic industries, close borders and activate the millions of militiamen the government claims to have.

Maduro’s last public appearance occurred on Friday night. He met at the Miraflores presidential palace with China’s special envoy for Latin American affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, and with a delegation from the Asian nation, according to government media.

Then, before dawn, came the news from President Donald Trump announcing that the Venezuelan leader had been captured by U.S. forces along with his wife and flown out of the country.

This story was originally published January 3, 2026 at 5:16 AM.