US capture of president gave many Venezuelans hope, but a week on, an even more draconian atmosphere pervades

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Freddy Guevara will never forget the 34 excruciating days he spent inside Venezuela’s most notorious political prison after being snatched by masked men from Nicolás Maduro’s intelligence agency.

The black hood, the interrogations, the stress positions, the salsa music his captors blasted at him in an attempt to make him crack.

Some suspected the attacks on Venezuela were coming, but the shock was still real and no one knows what will happen next

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• Why has US attacked Venezuela and captured president?

As they were jolted from their beds just before 2am on Saturday, many Caracas residents sought an innocent explanation for the racket that had interrupted their sleep: an exploding air conditioning unit, a tropical thunderstorm, an earthquake. Or perhaps a festive display of pyrotechnics over Venezuela’s mountain-flanked capital.

“I thought it might be fireworks,” Carlos Hurtado, a resident of the 23 de Enero housing estate on the city’s west side, recalled of the moment he was woken by a mysterious sequence of rumblings and explosions.