Hugo Chávez housing plan complex collapses after earthquakes in Venezuela

The earthquakes in Venezuela left one of the large complexes of the housing program promoted by the late president Hugo Chávez in La Guaira, the most affected state, uninhabitable, AFP found.
The two tremors that occurred on Wednesday less than a minute apart left almost 1,500 dead and great desolation in the country, especially in La Guaira, neighboring Caracas and considered ground zero of the tragedy.
Jenny Contreras, 28, has been sleeping with her husband and four-year-old son on a mattress on the street since strong tremors shook the building in which they lived.
She lived in an apartment that shook on the lower floors in one of the 192 buildings of Urbanismo Hugo Chávez, in the neighborhood of Catia La Mar. She was only able to recover a few belongings before the infrastructure gave way due to hundreds of aftershocks.
The residents of this complex, with 3,400 apartments and four floors, were evacuated and will be taken to a shelter in Caracas.
The disaster left hundreds of buildings collapsed and, according to authorities, 189 completely collapsed, mainly in Caracas and La Guaira.
The buildings exhibit large cracks; Many have given way at their bases and are leaning, almost falling. Wooden boards, beams and yellow polyurethane foam were exposed.
- "Less for a shelter" -
Other buildings collapsed due to the intensity of the tremor, but also due to the explosions of domestic gas cylinders, say some of its residents.
Among the rubble of one of the residences, the swollen hand of a dead man who had not yet been rescued appeared.
"Definitely, the entire residential complex will be closed off. The entire complex, in the future, will disappear because they are all in a terrible state", said Contreras.
Experts have warned about premature wear, cracks and structural damage in several buildings built under Chávez's emblematic plan: Misión Vivienda (Housing Mission, in free translation).
The College of Engineers of Venezuela (CIV), regulator of the profession of engineers and architects in the country, has warned in several reports about the vulnerability of buildings and the lack of information about the quality of soil studies.
"The other most affected wards were 1 and 3. Up there. On that side, everything has already collapsed. They sank. And there are many dead", said Dayana Lean, a 51-year-old trader.
She says she doesn't want to go to a shelter and asks the authorities for "the miracle of relocation to apartments, even if it's in other states."
"Wherever we go, except for a shelter. To stay as refugees, we stay here, we take care of ourselves", he stated.
In front of the ruins of their buildings, they placed mattresses, washing machines, wooden furniture and a series of household items that they managed to take from the house.
The interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, announced on Sunday the creation of "temporary camps" for those who lost their homes. Housing construction projects will be carried out "in a very short period of time", he said.
"Shall we go to a shelter?" asks Sandra Racure, 47, who has lived in this complex for 13 years. She regrets that the country still has "refugees" from other natural disasters.

Source: G1