Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Havana, colourful and majestic, at least what's left of it.
00:04 All around the colonial quarter there are crumbling facades, missing floors and forgotten
00:09 ruins.
00:10 Luis has lived here for 40 years.
00:12 He can barely survive on his state pension.
00:15 He has bags of sand, but hasn't been able to get the cement he needs to fix his crumbling
00:20 roof.
00:21 Part of the roof fell on my head.
00:24 Every now and again a bit more falls down.
00:26 I had to go to hospital and get four stitches.
00:30 With a fraying state and US sanctions which block imports, many in Havana live in constant
00:35 danger.
00:36 This year Luis's neighbour lost her life.
00:41 She went upstairs to take her brother something to eat.
00:44 And when she came down, the stairs gave in and she fell.
00:49 She died after eight days in hospital.
00:57 No money, no materials, so people scrape together what they can.
01:01 Michael gathers all the metal he can find, even when it's heavily rusted.
01:07 People salvage materials from dilapidating buildings to patch up their houses.
01:12 Here in Cuba, nothing goes to waste.
01:14 We recycle everything.
01:17 During rainy season, it can rain for a week.
01:20 When the sun comes out, the walls dry, cracks grow, and that's when buildings collapse.
01:28 The Cuban government still builds social housing, but they also suffer from a lack of materials.
01:34 Here in Pinal de RÃo, an old tile factory is being repurposed as housing.
01:40 We were able to recover part of the original structure, the ground floor and some of the
01:45 infrastructure.
01:47 These houses will be given to people affected by the recent hurricane.
01:52 One of our goals is to produce the materials we need locally.
01:55 We'd like to exploit the province's quarries to get sand, stones and clay.
01:59 And we also rely on donations.
02:04 In September 2022, Hurricane Ian partially destroyed nearly 100,000 homes on the island's
02:10 west coast.
02:12 Extreme climate events are multiplying in the region.
02:14 another threat for the island's deteriorating buildings.