On Thursday at noon, in the middle of a deluge, a landslide claimed the lives of two brothers;
Nélida and Ramón Acuña, 81 and 77 years old.
They lived together in a PH-type house and their home was next to a construction site.
On the plot of Pedro Goyena 551, in Caballito, the construction of a ten-story building with two basement garages was planned.
Precisely, in the middle of the excavation, the party wall gave way that ended up causing this tragedy.
Families neighboring the construction site
had been warning the authorities of the situation,
but their voices were ignored.
Not only did they resort to the usual channels - complaints to 103 Emergency - but they went to court and even hired mini cameras to inspect the pipes in their homes.
And they even made a judicial presentation for the work, which
was rejected just 24 hours before the tragedy
.
Recently a neighbor had gone to court to request that the work stop.
With photographs and a detailed story, she gave an account of the ordeal of living next to this work.
The woman documented the cracks in the walls,
floors and ceiling of her home that had already caused the demolition of the previous construction, at the end of 2022.
A paragraph of the complaint makes it clear what this neighbor and the other families were going through: "I want to highlight that, beyond the damage suffered on my property, it has worsened since September 2023, when the excavation began. Without contemplation "They have literally destroyed my property, which is the result of my effort.
I am terrified that everything will fall apart
, given the manifest improvisation and the degree of disinterest of the owners of the work."
The neighbor begged the Justice Department to act urgently, paralyzing the work: "There will be time to claim the considerable damages to my property, but
today I am motivated by the value of life
."
She added: "I fear for my life, that of my neighbors and that of passers-by."
The fatal victims were Ramón and Nélida.
They were brothers and lived in apartment 14, which collapsed into the well of the construction site on the land next door.
A few hours before the collapse,
civil court number 3 rejected the neighbor's request.
Regarding the mini camera in the pipes, the private report they hired concluded that they were in good condition,
but the joints were uneven from each other.
They believe this could have undermined the foundation and influenced the collapse.
Prior to all this, the families who lived in the neighboring plots had made other complaints.
The City Ombudsman's Office reported that it intervened four times.
In one of the complaints, it was objected that
the "excavation report" presented by the company "differed" from the work that was being
carried out.
Due to the tragic collapse of Caballito there were two people dead and another injured who had to be transferred to the Durand hospital.
Photo: Mariana Nedelcu
For their part, sources from the Buenos Aires Government assured
Clarín
that they received three complaints.
But none of them implied the closure of the work
or the stopping of work on the plot.
"When these tragedies occur, there are prior warnings. And there is a multi-causality of events that explain why they occur. We have been warning for a long time about the impact generated by construction without limits and with few controls," said engineer María Eva Koutsovitis, coordinator of the Community Engineering Chair, of the Faculty of Engineering of the UBA.
"The City has an unavoidable responsibility. These works between party walls, with neighboring homes that are almost centuries old,
have to be routinely controlled.
And specific inspections must also be carried out on the homes. In general they have load-bearing walls, so if a poorly done excavation, holes and weakens the ground on which these walls rest, so
they collapse,"
Koutsovitis explained.
For her part, Magdalena Eggers - architect, teacher and specialist in regulations and legislation linked to construction in the City - explained that during the excavation stage
there are different controls:
"In addition to the AGC (the Government Control Agency), they inspections of the Ministry of Labor, the UOCRA and the ART. In addition, an assistant to the person responsible for the hygiene and safety service must be present - during the entire time required for the excavation and submuration work -
during the excavation and submuration work. ".
"Many times the owners of the works also hire
an audit that monitors the tasks,"
he explains.
Can an inspector not detect danger?
"The excavation work is governed by very clear rules. The land is divided into slices: that is, you remove a slice of earth two meters wide,
shore it up and subwall it (
it is a process in which a retaining wall is created under earth to protect a structure or building). Once the concrete is consolidated and secure, another slice of earth is then cut again. An inspector should be able to warn of the danger if the work is not done well," Eggers understands.
City sources explained that also by regulations,
two controls are carried out during the excavation stage and another four during the rest of the work:
"The first control is when the works on the first floor are completed, then during the work on the structure; "The third control is carried out in the division of floors and then the control at the end of the work is carried out.
The inspectors are professionals who risk their registration. They are the ones who order the closure."
When these tragedies occur, doubts arise regarding the scope and concrete possibilities of control that the City has, in a territory where construction is carried out in a constant, persistent and growing manner.
"What is unacceptable is that despite the warnings, the companies continue forward. You cannot ignore a house
with diagonal cracks (it means that the wall is supporting differently from one end to the other)
, the sinking of the floor, that the doors and windows close poorly, intense vibrations. These alerts have to be evaluated and repaired to avoid these dramas," concluded Koutsovitis.
S.C.