Maracaibo, the oil capital of Venezuela, was sent back during the power outage

The looting of Maracaibo stopped almost completely on Thursday after a frenzy of violence and theft which showed how close Venezuela is to the total chaos.

In the stifling oil capital of the country, About 500 companies – farms, tire shops, entire shopping centers – were looted during the national power outage that started on March 7th. Looting continued even after the lights went back on, as the villagers flooded the security forces of Nicolás Maduro's regime. Traders are just starting to clean up, while desperate people are still searching the rubble.

"If people were making enough to make ends meet, we would not be trying to survive this way," said Enrique Gonzalez, an 18-year-old bus driver who flew into a Pepsi warehouse. Thousands of bottles were stolen in a few hours and people began scraping copper and scrap metal. The delivery trucks were without tires for hours.

"This country went to hell"

The great power outage of Venezuela has caused even more troubles in the country in crisis. Maduro led a spiral of decadence that led the United States and many other countries to recognize the leader of the opposition, Juan Guaidó, as a legitimate head of state. Maduro concentrates its resources and troops in the capital, Caracas. The devastation of Maracaibo, with a population of 1.6 million, shows that control of the authorities in the country is tenuous.

Maduro attributed the power outage to an American cyber attack, without providing any evidence. Experts blamed the destruction of the infrastructure. In Maracaibo, many transformers and substations have caught fire after the restoration of electricity this week and vast areas of the city have remained in the dark. Long lines of people with jugs and barrels formed near trucks with leaking water, streams and broken pipes.

On Guajira Avenue, the four-lane main street where most of the chaos occurred, security was inadequate. During a one-day visit to looted shopping malls and warehouses, only one municipal patrol vehicle was sighted.

The riots started in the heat of Saturday afternoon when an ice cream business started demanding payment in dollars. A desperate crowd entered the factory and then emptied pharmacies and shoe stores nearby. At nightfall the heart of Maracaibo was submerged as people got what they could get.

Polar companies, The Venezuelan food giant, pointed out that their Pepsi factory and their breweries and pasta were almost completely destroyed. People took thousands of cans of beer and soda and 160 pallets of food. The company lost 22 trucks and five forklifts.

Ferre Mall, a shopping center with more than 50 stores, it was emptied on Monday by people who pierced their bars and glbad doors. In the dark, the crowd ignited what they found to be able to see. A paper goods store caught fire and the fire spread.

The travel agencies, the cosmetics stands and the snack shops on Thursday had almost nothing left. The building smelled of smoke and melted asphalt from the roof hardened to the ground. Workers carried debris on china and broken glbad.

"It's hard to accept," admitted 60-year-old Bernardo Morillo, who built and manages the mall. "The National Guard went away when this vandalism happened and the firefighters did not even appear."

Throughout the city, security forces were useless as people took valuables such as ATMs, door frames, ovens, computers and surveillance cameras, Ricardo Costa said. vice president of the division of the group in Zulia. Fedecamaras business. The organization is strongly opposed to the Maduro regime, which, in Costa's view, reserves the power to crack down on protesters.

"How is it possible that 1,000 guards are deployed to repel 50,000 protesters, but when 1,000 looters go to a mall, they send only 50?"he asked.

"It could be said that it started because people are hungry, but looters did not just take food, it became a senseless vandalism."