By Genesis Carrero Soto.
Eighteen Petare inhabitants are now homeless after yet another group of houses collapsed in the Santo Niño sector of the largest barrio in Caracas. They hope that the governor of Miranda will assign them a space in a shelter where they can live and wait for the allocation.
But, the truth is, Petare, named after a flower that grows in the Avila mountain range, is collapsing. No sewers, electricity stolen from lampposts, no running water, and between 400 to 800,000 inhabitants is a bad combination, it seems.
Barrio representatives told El Pitazo that 300 families are at-risk in the Santo Niño (Holy Child) section alone since a landslide in 2019. Heavy rains, due to a more-intense-than-usual season for tropical storms in the nearby Caribbean, are complicating the situation even further this year.
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For 15 days, five families from the Santo Niño sector have been living by the kindness of their neighbors. They are waiting for the Governor’s Office from Miranda to fulfill its promise to take them to a shelter to protect the few belongings they could rescue after the last collapse last September 8.
Jose Rojas is one whose house collapsed. He told El Pitazo that they are 18 people, among them seven children, who were left homeless and heard the promises of officials of the Governor of Miranda who assured them that they would go after them in the days following the collapse.
However, the victims are still waiting, many of them without work and with nowhere to go. They are still in the area, and, so far, the community spokesperson in charge of responding to them has indicated that she has no further information.
Rojas reminded that before the collapse, his family waited for 15 days the government truck, who was to come to help them go out of the house. “We had all the things picked up the day the house collapsed,” Rojas said. The house got already declared at risk.
Tania Arellano, another of the victims of the Santo Niño sector, indicates that they have not answered about the situation, and even she, who got registered for a house, was left waiting. In the Santo Niño, there are more than 300 families are at risk since 2019 due to a landslide.
The residents of this community ask the authorities, and particularly Governor Hector Rodriguez, not to forget the people of Santo Niño and to help them resolve a situation that has already left 18 families in the streets and threatens more than 300.
