Elena Berti (left) was sleeping alone in her house when a projectile landed in her yard. Berti's daughter, Patricia Salazar, is at right. | Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot
Jan 6, 2026 / 16:20 pm (CNA).
What does large-scale bombing sound like? What does it feel like to be in the middle of a series of explosions? After Jan. 3, everyone in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, is able to answer these questions.
Around 2 a.m. local time on Jan. 3, as the U.S. military carried out Operation Absolute Resolve to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, terrifying explosions interrupted the sleep of millions. A family from east Caracas, the Bertis, along with their neighbors experienced the chaos firsthand.
Survival was 'a miracle'
It's one thing to be awakened by the relatively distant sound of planes and bombs, and quite another to be jolted awake by the devastating roar of a projectile landing less than 20 meters (65 feet) from your room.
Elena Berti, 78, was sleeping alone in her house when a projectile landed in her yard during the bombings. Berti lives in a small neighborhood near an area known as El Volcán, where there are antennas that were among the U.S. military's targets.
The force of the explosion was devastating. "My house is destroyed, my house is destroyed!" was all Berti could manage to say on the phone to her daughter, Patricia Salazar, who was only able to help her mother hours later, when it was already daylight and the danger had passed.
"She always sleeps with a rosary behind her pillow and always has a number of statues of saints on her nightstand; some of them, unfortunately, lost their heads. I say a miracle was worked for her, as well as for my aunt and uncle who live upstairs," Salazar said in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner.
Two large windows, located above Berti's head as she slept, were blown to pieces. A large piece of the headboard of her bed, made of heavy wood, also broke. Several doors and walls were destroyed. The kitchen was almost unrecognizable. There is such significant damage to the structure of the house that a large portion needs to be demolished.
But Berti was completely unharmed.
"In the morning, she started sending me the photos," Salazar said, "very graphic ones, of the destroyed house, and the only thing I wrote back was a phrase from the Novena of Abandonment, which I've been reading: 'Oh Jesus, I give myself totally to you, I abandon myself to you, you take care of everything,'" she recalled, visibly moved.
"Our dear God will help us; he's the one who saved my mom and my aunt and uncle, who could have easily died because, well, what are the odds that a missile ... with all that power, comes falling in your garden and destroys, to say the least, half of your house? The windows shattered completely; they could have been cut in two. I can't tell you what happened, but a miracle definitely occurred," she said.
20 feet less and 'it would have been a disaster'
Windows and doors of houses more than 660 feet from the point of impact were destroyed. Almost the entire neighborhood was affected, not only in terms of material damage but also psychologically.
On the second floor of Berti's house, in a separate apartment, lives her brother Arturo. That night he stayed up very late: He had been reading in his living room until just a few minutes before the projectile hit. The living room ended up being the area most affected by the explosion.
"A little while later [after he had left the room] I heard a long whistling sound and then an impact, a phenomenal explosion, something incredible. Everything shook, the bed shook. I felt the building shake, all the windows shattered, the bed was covered in glass," Arturo Berti recounted.
He immediately tried to take cover with his wife, not knowing exactly what had happened. Arturo said that those who have heard his story and seen the videos of the explosion have no explanation how they managed to come out alive.
"It has to be a miracle, it's something incredible. If it had been six meters [20 feet] less, it would have fallen into the house, and I don't know what would have happened; it would have been a disaster. Of course, I believe strongly in God, I have always believed in God, in the Virgin Mary, and in [St.] José Gregorio. That's how it is, it was the hand of God," he said, on the verge of tears.
Right next to the Berti residence live Gracia Mónaco and her daughter, Ana María Campos. The damage to their house was concentrated in their two bedrooms.
Amid the smoke and rubble, Campos went to her mother's room, which no longer had windows. The frames were severely bent, and the walls were violently cracked.
Mónaco's faith had clung to a small statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which she had just placed on her nightstand a few hours before the bombings.
"This Virgin Mary statue that's here wasn't here two days ago. I found it in the closet where I had stored it and I said: I'm going to put it out again," she recounted.
"My window exploded here, debris came in, I suffered through the moment, but this Virgin Mary statue remained here without moving, without falling over, and for me that means something. You have to believe in that, that God exists, that he is with us," she added.
Campos said her shock and nerves were eased by her mother's faith.
"My mom tells me: Look, Ana María, I had this Virgin Mary statue put away, and I took it out. You should have seen how that statue was: Intact, it didn't even fall. Everything else had fallen, and the Virgin Mary remained standing. She held it in her hand and placed it next to where it had been and said to me: Don't you believe in God, don't you have faith? That truth moved me," she said.
Mónaco, her daughter, the Berti family, and all their neighbors are proof of the unwavering faith of Venezuelans, even in the most adverse conditions, which have been many in the last 25 years.
"This is important to me, it's vital because I have faith, and faith is with me all the time. That's why I tell her that we must always believe, not just occasionally. God is with us always, at all times and in all circumstances," Mónaco said.
The Berti family has started a fundraising campaign where anyone can contribute to the reconstruction of their house. Those who wish to do so can also donate building materials for Mónaco's house and those of the other neighbors.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
