Residents of two large apartment buildings in Colón, Panama, are pleading for immediate government action as their homes crumble around them. More than 35 families in buildings 11073 and 11077 on Calle 12, Avenida Meléndez say they live in constant fear of collapse. They accuse the housing ministry of ignoring their documented requests for relocation after being declared at risk.
The structures suffer from severe structural damage including falling ceiling slabs, roof detachment, and deep cracks in load-bearing walls. A formal evacuation order for the buildings is already in place. Issued by the National Civil Protection System (Panama), the order has not yet led to a transfer for the inhabitants. These families are part of a formal process to be moved to the Altos de Los Lagos housing project.
Official Process Yields No Results for Families
Despite completing all required steps, the residents report a bureaucratic standstill. They have submitted numerous personal documents to authorities multiple times with no outcome. The situation becomes more dangerous with every rainstorm, worsening the decay and creating intolerable living conditions inside the aging buildings.
“We have gathered documents nonstop, papers proving non-ownership, IDs, birth certificates. We take them to Miviot, they file them away, and I don’t know if they throw them out or what, but they give no answers,” said affected resident Cristina Wilson. [Translated from Spanish]
The Ministry of Housing and Land Management (Panama), known as Miviot, is the agency responsible for executing the relocation. Residents state they have attended every mandatory briefing for the Altos de Los Lagos project. Their frustration stems from the gap between official recognition of the danger and the lack of tangible progress toward a solution.
Living in the coastal Colón Province, the families describe a dire reality. “It rains more inside than outside,” one resident commented about the leaking structures. Their primary demand is for Miviot to act on the existing evacuation order and finally move them to safe housing. They wait, they say, for the ministry to fulfill its promised role in their protection.