In the second city of Maracaibo, the crippling blackout sparked a terrifying rampage that police seemed unable to control
Some liken the damage wrought on Venezuela’s second city to a natural disaster. Others suspect satanic intervention.
“El demonio,” says Betty Méndez, a local shopkeeper, by way of explanation for the wave of looting and unrest that convulsed Maracaibo earlier this month.
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Most, however, describe the mayhem in psychiatric terms: a collective breakdown that shocked this lakeside city to its core and offered a terrifying glimpse of Venezuela’s possible future as it sinks deeper into economic, political and social decline.
“Horror, fear, despair,” said María Villalobos, a 35-year-old journalist, weeping as she relived three days of violence that many here call la locura – “the madness”.
“I thought it was the start of a civil war.”
Her husband, Luis González, nodded grimly in agreement as they recalled watching hundreds of looters – some wielding axes, sledgehammers, machetes or even pistols – move into nearby warehouses, shops and even a church to begin a frenzy of wrecking and theft. “It was as if they were possessed,” the 39-year-old driver remembered.
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Maracaibo’s “madness” began on the night of 10 March – three days after a catastrophic blackout plunged almost the entire nation into darkness. But it had been long in the making thanks to years of economic and political neglect.
The 1.6 million residents of Maracaibo – an oil capital once celebrated as Latin America’s answer to Houston – complained of shortages of water, electricity and fuel and a worsening public transport system even before Venezuela’s crisis began to accelerate in 2016, with the onset of hyperinflation.
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