The greatest effects, including severe damage to agriculture and electricity networks, were concentrated in the municipalities of El Cotorro, San Miguel, Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros
14ymedio, Havana, April 24, 2024 — Once again, the Cuban Council of Ministers approved the financing for 50% of the cost of construction materials needed by the victims of the intense rains of March 22 and 23 in Havana, which caused 26 total and 122 partial building collapses.
The greatest effects, including severe damage to agriculture and electricity networks, were concentrated in the municipalities of El Cotorro, San Miguel, Arroyo Naranjo and Boyeros, according to the state newspaper Granma.
The Government’s decision is similar to that of other catastrophes, such as Hurricane Sandy, which devastated Santiago de Cuba in 2012, and Hurricane Ian, which did the same in Pinar del Río in 2022. However, it had little effect on the reconstruction of the lost assets.
One year after Hurricane Ian, barely 45% of the affected houses had been repaired
One year after Hurricane Ian, for example, and according to official data, it had barely been possible to repair 45% of the affected houses, and only 3% of the collapsed ones were raised again, not to mention the situations of Sandy’s thousands of victims, many of whom were abandoned to their fate.
The Unofficial Gazette, which in two paragraphs legalizes the help that will be given to the most recent victims, does not explain where the materials that will be sold to them will come from. In November 2023, in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero to analyze the development of the Housing Program, Dilaila Díaz Fernández, general director of materials of the Ministry of Construction, explained that to cover the needs of the Housing program, 83 million bricks are needed per year, but in 2022 only 39 million were available.
There is also no cement or steel for the manufacture of buildings. At the beginning of March, the newspaper Escambray published that the Siguaney cement factory, located in the municipality of Tabasco, will only produce 20,000 tons of cement this year due to the energy crisis in the country. The figure represents less than half of the 47,000 tons obtained in 2023.
The Unofficial Gazette does not explain where the materials that will be sold to those affected will come from
The terrible housing situation does not exclusively affect Havana, where according to the General Urban Planning Plan of Havana there are 946 properties at risk of collapse. In Ciego de Ávila, for example, more than 40,000 houses would have to be built to resolve the housing situation, which is not the worst in the country. Very close, in Villa Clara, 39% of the houses are in poor condition. In July 2023, the Granma reported that 61,559 families from all over the Island lived on dirt floors and that only 2,103 had solved the problem.
Other data from the Ministry of Construction indicate that the housing deficit in Cuba exceeds 856,000 homes. Between 2021 and 2023, only 50,000 had been built. By the middle of last year, only 13% of the state subsidy program had been implemented, and 154 of the 9,000 rooming houses had been eliminated.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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