Havana's historic buildings crumble after relentless downpour

After several days of intense rain in the capital of Cuba, Havana, approximately twenty tall, long-neglected residential buildings collapsed. Once beautiful streets are now haunted by the skeletons of former tenements.

Due to heavy rains last week, several building disasters occurred in Havana consecutively. According to a statement from Havana's Meteorological Forecast Centre, a powerful downpour hit the Cuban capital in less than three hours.

In Havana, tall, long-neglected residential buildings collapsed. One resident died, and several were injured. Opposition websites believe that the disasters are caused by years of neglect in maintenance, overcrowding of homes, and a lack of sufficient funds for construction.

According to statements announced by the city administration, for several years now, at least a thousand flats in the Cuban capital have become uninhabitable each year due to the lack of necessary repairs, and very few new ones have been built.

More and more streets in Cuba's capital, once rightly regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the Caribbean and Latin America, are now haunted by the skeletons of former tenements, even in the representative downtown district of Vedado. The National Office of Statistics and Information admits in its official bulletins that over 600,000 people occupy "not the best condition" flats in the capital's capital.

The situation is not easy to fix due to significant budget deficits. However, the increasing income from the foreign tourism sector gives some hope for improving housing conditions in Cuba. Money earned from tourists can be partly allocated to improving housing infrastructure.