Through successive troughs, we are, once again, confronted with the vulnerability of life, subjected to the attacks of naturefacing our fragility as human beings.
Just a few days after commemorating the Jet Set tragedy, where 236 people lost their lives, due to the structural failures of a building that for decades was a scene of entertainment for thousands of Dominicans and foreigners, we are faced with other tragedies.
Regardless of the indisputable responsibilities of the owners of the premises, I insist that there is a great responsibility of the Dominican State, the same one that is very severe with the new stores of Chinese businessmen and that for years has been indifferent to the structural failures of numerous public and private buildings. I will continue saying it until I get tired, hundreds of schools, bridges, buildings and even hospitals were identified as having faults, after the 2003 earthquake, the majority still have those faults.
In 2022 and 2023, two fateful Novembers, they made us aware of the vulnerability of our capital, this April, Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata and other provinces hit again by the inclemency of nature, with dozens of families who have lost part of their belongings, homes destroyed and the road network decimated, and not to mention the lives lost, forcing us to rethink our prevention policies.
We have made progress in the installation of a radar system that is intended to allow us to foresee many of these contingencies, but we will always be vulnerable, as a permanent reminder of the smallness of human work, in the face of the natural elements that God has endowed the earth with.
The fall of the Camú bridge, of small bridges in El Naranjal, in La Boca de Los Hidalgos, the speed bump that connects Gualete with La Jaiba, the impact on humble houses in Montellano, are small examples of vital structures that, if periodically evaluated, perhaps would not have collapsed.
Sectors of the Camú community have been warning since February that the extraction of materials from the river was undermining its structure; it is necessary to determine if this is the case, in which case responsibilities must be established.
I remember that in a seminar offered by the UNDP to journalists from Puerto Plata, after the 2003 earthquake, they said that 1 dollar in prevention is equivalent to 5 in reconstruction, let’s focus on a great national day of prevention.
Here there are hundreds of covered and diverted ravines, which one day resume their usual course and flood, there are thousands of families with houses built on the banks of rivers and ravines, thousands of houses, buildings, schools and hospitals at high seismic risk.
Last week, President Luis Abinader said, rightly, that there is no drainage that can withstand 400 millimeters of water, it is true. But with drainage according to the needs of the city, the damage would be less.
Are we going to continue waiting for new misfortunes, to mitigate them, when we can prevent them?
How many more misfortunes have to happen before we realize that nature is reminding us of the pending task of preventing?
