"There was my house"the lament of the ten families victims of a collapse in Havana

Havana/With the steel exposed to the sun, the facade turned into rubble and dozens of neighbors with the anguished face around it, this was seen on Monday morning the building located on San Bernardino street, between Durege and General Serrano, in the neighborhood Habanera de Santos Suárez, from the municipality of Ten of October. The property collapsed this weekend leaving a dozen families without a roof.

Sitting in a wheelchair on the sidewalk in front, a neighbor of the collapsed building pointed to the ground floor and assured: “There was my house.” About twenty people accumulated on the street the few belongings that had managed to extract between the pieces of wall and the twisted cabillas: there was a mattress, a washing machine and some paintings that once hung up in the room of those homes that no longer exist.

A crane and several state employees had been demolishing the pieces of the three -storey quarter, declared uninhabitable years ago, but in which several families still lived. To the cut traffic and the neighborhood pending each mandarriazo against the walls, the yellowish dust that covered everything was added. “First, they said they were going to knock only the upper floors but now they have warned that they will demolish everything,” he explained to 14ymedio The woman in the wheelchair.

“My house is that of the ground floor,” said the woman and pointed to a part of the building that was barely seen the upper windows because the rest was covered by a mountain of rubble. While talking, the crane raised a cage with a worker who helped lower some belongings of the upper floors. Every rescued was received with joy by the neighbors but also with concern: “I do not know if I can recover my bed,” a young woman regretted with a child in her arms.

Disaying the voices of not entering, some residents ventured even to sneak through the doors of a side hall to try to get some appliance, a wallet or the family photos stored in a drawer. They left a while later with something in the hands and the fright on the face. “That is ugly inside, it seems that it will continue to collapse,” warned a man who managed to evacuate several pairs of shoes and an electric pot.

The uncertainty of what will come after demolition was also a reason for conversation. “Now they probably send us for a shelter, you will know where,” speculated one of the victims that he had not yet been able to recover any value object from the collapsed walls. Until now, the solidarity of the neighbors has achieved water and something to eat but those affected know that they cannot stay overnight in front of ruin.

The landslides of buildings are a frequent reality in the Cuban capital, especially when the rains and the bad weather soften the foundations of the buildings already in danger of collapsing. At the end of last June, when Havana lived several days of storm, at least 19 buildings suffered landslides partial or totalaccording to a source of 14ymedio that preferred anonymity.

The fall of a town on 26th and 29th Street of the municipality of Playa, which was recorded by several passers -by and neighbors, was one of the most widespread at those dates, in which it is estimated that there was at least one deceased and several injured.