HAVANA, Cuba.- This Tuesday morning some 20 families had to leave building No. 231 on Bernaza street, between Muralla and Brasil, after police officers, Housing officials and the municipal government of Old Havana, They will order the eviction of the property due to a possible collapse alert issued by local residents.
“I was already at work, I came running because my daughter fell asleep with my husband and last night we felt the blows of the pieces of the ceiling falling to the floor. When they told me I thought there was a landslide, ”she told CubaNet Angélica Martínez Peraza, one of the tenants.
According to several of the displaced residents, after the passage of Hurricane Ian, at the end of last September, the authorities had tried to evict them twice, but the families continued to occupy the building because Housing never provided the new locations.
Luis Ángel Robaina Gómez, one of those affected, explained that this time the authorities appeared at the site and forced the residents to remove their belongings. The eviction began in the early hours, however, after two in the afternoon the people remained sitting in the street without knowing where they would be sent.
“There are neighbors who left, but most of them don’t want to because this is their house and it’s the only thing they have. Under the curtain, it is coming to terms that, if Housing does not solve the problem, at night everyone returns to their own and they come to take us out again, ”said Robaina.
The building was declared uninhabitable since the late nineties. Now, the recent winter rains dealt a dangerous blow to its battered structure, which throughout the weekend was detaching pieces of the roofs that separate the three levels it has.
The report by Yamilet Quesada Triana, a neighbor of 231, says that in the adjoining buildings, noises were heard due to the fall of the concrete boulders.
“They had to file a complaint —the neighbors— because this situation affects their homes, which by the way are not good either. They have their cracks, like all the old buildings in Havana. Painted like this —the building— he deceives, but it’s an old woman with rouge. Inside it is rotten,” said the woman.
According to Brian Moreira Rodríguez, through the openings in the ceiling of his room you can see the sky. Years ago, concern led him to measure the cracks. As he describes it, in 2010 the separation was just millimeters and currently he can pass his fist to the other side.
The situation of the floor, that is, the ceiling of the apartment on the lower level, is no different. She shudders under her footsteps, and as she cleans, the water runs quickly through the cracks and falls into the house below.
“This apartment was left to me by my late mother, imagine the pain if I finally have to leave it. Right now no one knows where it is going, or for how long, and we are already at the end of the year just around the corner. It’s better that they let me die here, you lose everything and the fucking government doesn’t do anything to help,” concluded Moreira.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +525545038831, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
