Havana: Rain and clogged sewers form a dirty river

Havana/Cuatro Caminos, in Central Havana, this Thursday afternoon seemed more like the Indian city of Calcutta in the middle of the monsoon than the nerve center of the capital of Cuba. The heavy downpour that fell on the city, combined with the sewers clogged with garbage, formed a gigantic river that was up to two meters deep in some points.

In the lower parts, pedestrians crossed slowly, trying to avoid the filth that was getting tangled in their legs. The dirty and stinking waters flooded some houses.

“What could happen otherwise, with all that uncollected waste and the collapsed sewer,” lamented Marian, a neighbor on Monte Street. Another neighbor commented: “What scares me is that some creature will be swallowed by the current, like that child, because anyone who doesn’t know goes down through a hole.”

The woman remembered, in fact, the death of Jonathan Oliva12 years old, which occurred in February 2025, in a similar flood in the Havana neighborhood of Luyanó. Then, the intense rains combined with poor sanitation caused the sewers to collapse in several places. The boy was returning home from school when he was sucked into an open sinkhole, invisible under the water.

On this occasion, there were no casualties. This Thursday morning, yes, there were still traces of the sudden dirty river, already evaporated. On the edges of the container, the scattered remains of kilos and kilos of uncollected garbage bags swirled, black and wet, which today clog the city’s septic tanks.