14ymedio, Havana, 25 June 2023 — One man died and another was injured on Friday by the partial collapse of a building in a construction zone in the Luyanó neighborhood, in the Diez de Octubre municipality. Although there is no official version of the accident, the details published on social networks indicate that both workers were left under the rubble with serious injuries and ultimately one of them died.
In the Facebook group “Solo gente de Luyanó”, Internet user Lilly Fonseca shared photographs of the collapse where the rubble of the old buildings can be seen, which are being demolished to build new homes. According to her version, when the wall collapsed, the slab where the two workers were, whose identities have not been provided, also collapsed.
A nurse who went to the construction zone explained that they tried to revive the worker, but it was impossible due to the severity of his injuries. The medic pointed out that the two men did not have personal protective equipment, so they were more prone to fractures.
“Great care must be taken in the streets of Havana and also in old buildings, like this one. Also, first, an architect or engineer has to go so they can asses the conditions of the architecture,” Fonseca wrote in your post.
The Luyanó neighborhood is one of those with the most deteriorated housing stock in Havana, due to the age of its buildings, the little maintenance they have received and the effects of the tornado that affected the area in January 2019. Its location, outside the tourist perimeter of the Cuban capital, has aggravated the lack of investment in streets and homes.
Building collapses are constant in Cuba due to the lack of maintenance of the oldest infrastructures, which are more vulnerable during the winter due to the accumulation of humidity. Just a month ago on San Miguel street, between Campanario and Manrique streets, in Centro Habana, a residential building collapsed and left a mother and her one-year-old son with injuries.
Last March, the residents of Zapata street, between Infanta and Basarrate, in Havana, denounced that a facade of an old building threatened passers-by who passed through the area. The infrastructure was barely supported by makeshift sticks, a mockery for the inhabitants of the area who have asked the authorities to demolish it.
The risk of buildings is not only in Havana; in recent months deaths have also been reported in the collapse in other provinces. In February, a man died when a piece of the facade of a building in Camagüey fell on him. Only a month earlier, three high school students were hospitalized in an emergency in Sancti Spíritus because a pieces of a wall mural fell on them while they were walking.
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