• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Cuba, Venezuela to Develop Hurricane-Resistant Housing

  • A family stands outside their home due to the risk of it collapsing at the seafront Malecon after Hurricane Irma in Havana, Cuba.

    A family stands outside their home due to the risk of it collapsing at the seafront Malecon after Hurricane Irma in Havana, Cuba. | Photo: Reuters

Published 3 October 2017
Opinion

Both nations plan to build houses that can resist damage caused by natural disasters in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Officials from Venezuela and Cuba are planning build housing structures that can withstand strong winds and flooding caused by hurricanes, like those that have hit the Caribbean in past weeks.

RELATED:
Cuba, Venezuela Offer Puerto Rico Hurricane Relief

The governments of both nations are analyzing the creation of an international housing program, with a production plant based in Cuba.

The meeting is being held in Venezuela at the headquarters of Petrocasa, an organization that mass produces houses in rural areas under the country's public housing program.

Venezuelan Minister for Housing and Habitat Manuel Quevedo and Cuban Minister of Construction Rene Meza, along with community representatives from both countries, are attending the meeting.

"We are creating an exchange of knowledge to strengthen ties so that our Cuban brothers learn about the techniques we use here in Venezuela in the development of roofs for housing," Quevedo said.

Quevedo added that Hurricane Irma didn't affect houses in Cuba made of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, that were built with Petrocasas technology.

"Through these alliances, the industrial theme in polyvinyl chloride housing construction is strengthened."

Hurricane Irma and its 290 kilometers-per-hour winds caused severe damage to Cuba’s housing, agriculture, highway and electro-energetic systems, leaving vast areas without power for days.

Cuba itself dispatched 771 physicians to several Caribbean islands that were also affected by the storm's destruction.

"The first humanitarian aid that came to us was from the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Cooperation has been immense and we will always be at the command of the unconditional support for the revolution," Meza said.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.