Tense calm holds in Caracas a day after Maduro deposed

A tense calm prevails in Venezuela, a day after President Nicolás Maduro was deposed and captured by a US military operation.

Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, was unusually quiet on Sunday, with few vehicles moving around.

Grocery stores, service stations and other businesses were mostly closed.

A day earlier, queues formed outside stores and gas stations as hesitant Venezuelans stocked up on goods in case unrest broke out.

Roads usually filled with runners and cyclists were largely empty, and Venezuela’s presidential palace was guarded by armed civilians and members of the military.

In La Guaira province outside the capital, families whose houses were damaged in the explosions that occurred during the operation that captured Maduro and his wife were still trying to clear debris.

The walls of some buildings remained open.

Following the shocking turnaround in Venezuela and US President Donald Trump’s promises that the US would “govern” Venezuela with the help of Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, no one in the country seemed to know where things stood or what lay ahead.

In a low-income neighborhood of eastern Caracas, construction worker Daniel Medalla sat on the steps outside a Catholic church and told several congregants that there would be no morning mass again.

Medalla suggested that the streets remained mostly empty not because people were worried about another strike, but because they feared government repression if they dared to celebrate, following a violent government crackdown during last year’s worrying elections.

“We’ve been waiting for this,” Medalla, 66, said of Maduro’s departure.