Small “waterfalls” have already formed inside the hole with the water flowing from the pipe and the neighbors foresee a disaster.
14ymedio, Havana, 11 May 2024 — “Until a misfortune occurs, the Government is not going to fix this,” predicts Marta, a neighbor who lives a few steps from the pothole-pool in the municipality of Cerro, in Havana. After several years of cutting the street in two, the hole has not only taken on monstrous proportions, but, since the last time this newspaper visited the neighborhood, it has absorbed more garbage, debris and water.
Its spine, a pipe that should have been fixed by the state company Aguas de La Habana weeks ago, remains broken. “They came to get a snack,” Marta mocks, alluding to the workers who, supposedly, would be in charge of covering the leak and restoring the pavement. However, it is easy to see that the pothole no longer requires a minor or partial solution, but rather a serious attack.
Marta sees “a misfortune” coming and she is right. The pothole is surrounded by two “traversable” parts: the fragment of street that was left next to it and a piece of sidewalk, which now serves as a bridge for anyone who wants to risk crossing. It is enough to see, the woman comments, how the structure warps when someone passes over it.
“If someone falls in there and is unlucky enough to not know how to swim, they drown,” she says. The warning is not exaggerated. Inside the pothole,
