When the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez built this beachfront housing complex named after him as part of his socialist revolution, residents got a fresh start after massive floods devastated the area more than a decade earlier.
But after two consecutive earthquakes shook parts of the 1,100-unit building last Wednesday, engineers have called on the Venezuelan government to conduct an urgent inspection of such public housing that is still standing.
“I lost my whole house,” said Yelsa Rojas, who since 2015 has lived on the second floor of a building known as ‘Los Cocos’, for its proximity to the beach of the same name.
“We think everyone on the second floor is dead,” he said. The only reason he was alive was because he was at a medical appointment when the earthquakes struck, he added.
While engineers and construction experts said it was too early to declare why private buildings collapsed, decades of neglect, lack of enforcement of building codes and poor licensing practices under Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, likely increased the human cost of the disaster.
They also cited the instability of the soil in the most affected state of La Guaira, where Los Cocos is located, making it a very dangerous area to build on.
