Another House Collapses in Havana, What’s Next for the Survivors?

By Wilfredo Cancio Isla  (Café Fuerte)

HAVANA TIMES – Marina Castro and her son managed to save their lives by chance.

Marina was the owner of the house that collapsed in the Cerro neighborhood due to heavy rains that lashed the Cuban capital on Thursday afternoon.

This extraordinary photo testimony is by Enrique de la Osa, one of the most astute photojournalists working in Cuba.

The die was cast for this family. Marina, 57, had gone that afternoon to the Clinical Surgical Hospital of Diez de Octubre, better known as La Dependiente, to treat the rheumatism she suffers.  She also has had heart surgery. Her son was also not home.

A total loss

Marina has saved her life with her son, but she has lost everything else. In her dramatic situation, suffering from health problems and daily needs, now deprived of a roof and perhaps condemned to a homeless shelter, she deserves special attention.

Maybe it can be a human-interest story for some of the agitators of exhausted and demagogic politics who are talking away at the X Congress of the Cuban Journalists Association (UPEC), in Havana, promising to take the island’s journalism closer to the needs of the population.

It would be at least advisable for some of the government’s reporters go to this impoverished neighborhood of Cerro to have a look and listen to what Marina deserves as a Cuban citizen.

May Cuba accompany her. Another miracle is needed.