Havana Cuba. – Juana says that she has lived in the same building for almost 60 years. She almost all her life. And that she did not want to spend her last years in a shelter. Now dedicated to caring for her youngest grandson, barely two years old, she lives in fear that a column and the staircase that ascends to the second floor will collapse the moment one of her people, or anyone, passes by. . Even herself, whose legs respond less and less and she walks more slowly.
The multifamily property, located at Maloja 113, between Rayo and San Nicolás, in the heart of the Los Sitios neighborhood, stopped showing its finery a long time ago. Eclectic in style and with four levels, two of which are high struts, it was built in 1940 according to property documents.
Some tenants, like César, the manager of the building, believe that it is even older, perhaps from the 1920s or even colonial, due to the incongruity of the façade. He senses that it was probably in 1940 that the remodeling was carried out that gave it its current structure.
Juana says that it was in 2000 the last time the building “had a hand.” Of the 24 years that have passed since then, it has been in the last two that its deterioration accelerated the most.
“Three years ago those columns were not like this. “You could still continue pulling,” she says. “Before the pandemic, this building was already a dirty old building, but it still held up. With a good repair this would last about 20 more years, but they [las autoridades] They wait until there is no solution, until they fall, kill someone and then they look for someone to blame, and nothing, everything stays the same. The following month there is another collapse and another injured or dead.”
On June 1, around 7:30 in the morning, all the neighbors came out of their homes in terror when they heard a loud noise. The most critical of the three columns that support the interior of the building, had a piece of concrete detached, leaving the structure even weaker and exposing the rods, also gnawed over the years.
“We all thought that she had completely fallen because of how strong that felt… and that the heavy, daily downpours that there are now had not yet started. When the sun says to really rise and feel strong, these buildings and balconies are going to start to fall. We should take that piece that fell from the column as a warning, and do something now,” says Juana.
Landslides in the Havana capital are increasingly frequent. They have become a common scene. The multisystem crisis that impacts the Island, added to the negligence and apathy of the authorities, puts the lives of multiple citizens in danger. No less important are the successive modifications and divisions that are made to these buildings to house more people, given the prevailing housing crisis. This undoubtedly influences the increase in weight that causes the structures to collapse.
These incidents occur especially in the months of June to November with the scourge of various meteorological events: intense rains, troughs, thunderstorms and hurricanes. Last March, when three people had to be rescued after two floors of a multi-family building collapsed, authorities confirmed at least 26 total collapses related to the intense rains that affected the western region on that date.
Since the June rains began, not only has a good part of the column fallen at Maloja 113: “This is falling little by little every day. Today a piece of the column, tomorrow another, the day after a piece of architrave, a piece of the ceiling of the corridors,” says Juana. “Luckily there was no one passing by at that time because that thing would fall on anyone and at least crack their head or knock them out.”
“It’s really worrying. There are children here, a pregnant girl, elderly people. There are people, human beings. That should be enough. “I don’t understand why we always have to wait for the worst to happen, when things can be stopped in time.”
Rusted bars and beams exposed to the elements, ceilings, walls and architraves cracked to the point of releasing pieces of masonry, as if the mixture, once made to be melted, now, over time, became foreign bodies that the structure seeks to expel. This is what the inside of the building looks like.
“If you look, the worst part of that column is from the second to the third floor. In general its condition is not good, but it is in that section that it is the worst. The rods are bending. It is evident that it cannot support floors three and four,” says Anita, a woman from Santiago de Cuba, who has been renting in the building for a year.
Anita goes up and down every day with great fear. The flight of stairs that leads to the second level, where she lives, is as critical as the column.
“I am a messenger. I go in and out all the time. I go up and down these stairs more than 10 times a day. And look how it is, a beam practically outside, collapsing. At any moment it could also fall, and we would be left without communication.”
A month earlier, when the deterioration of the property began to become more noticeable and raise alarm among the neighbors, Anabel, whose home is the closest to the column, went to the Architecture and Urban Planning office to report it. After 15 days, when the technical opinion was received, she returned. She had to shore up the area that supported the column. However, the community architect had to appear and make a technical review and a final report. They warned him, however, that all this could take a while; Maybe if she paid informally the process could be speeded up a little.
“They told me this: All of Havana is falling, there are more than 700 buildings about to collapse and hundreds of shoring orders. We have to wait,” says Anabel.
The order to shore up the property at Maloja 113 is 424-31. Although none of the tenants know exactly what the numbering means, they suspect that they are numbers 424 awaiting shoring up. Something quite discouraging and worrying when they perceive that the building is collapsing on them at any moment.
“There is even a queue to shore up, even to prevent human and material losses. The whole of Havana is really falling, so it is obvious that there is even a queue for that. The bad thing is that when it’s our turn it will be too late,” warns César.
Some neighbors have taken the initiative to collect money to pay or speed up the process. Also to hire a brigade of builders to demolish the column and recast it. They have even done more: shortly before the partial collapse of the column, C. and Yankiel, other tenants, measured the distance from the floor to the architrave, obtained a very thick wooden log some time later and propped it up in their own way.
“It’s fine to pull, it seems to hold it, but it’s not the ideal solution,” explains C., who has asked to remain anonymous. “Here we are surviving on our own initiative, if we don’t take action it’s by choice. to these people [las autoridades] The only thing he cares about is his hotels and his politicking. We have to go out to solve ourselves, go to our jobs and also go to others to come and do their work. In buildings like these it was so that there would be more frequent inspections and visits by the housing people.”
The most worrying thing for C. and Yankiel was that, when placing the stick that would replace the function of the column, they noticed that it did not fit, so they had to lower it, even though they had previously made the measurement. Everything indicates that, in the time that elapsed between the measurement and obtaining the wood plus the progressive and silent collapse of the column, the floor gave way a few centimeters.
“Maybe if we didn’t get that stick in place in time and free the weight from the column, the upper floor would have fallen,” says C.
A little over a week ago the community architect showed up and confirmed that both the column area and the staircase needed to be shored up.
“But we are still in the same situation, waiting for them to come and shore up correctly. Every day a different piece falls, and one with his heart in his mouth every time he feels a noise,” says Juana. “Here in Havana one lives accustomed to the fact that some building is always going to fall. And one day it could be yours.”
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2024-06-26 05:33:10
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