Minister of Housing and Urban Development Iván Poduje announced on Monday that 40 rental subsidies would be provided to families in Villa Mirador, in Arauco, Biobío Region. The housing complex has cracks, sinkholes and dampness.
According to La Tercera, technical teams from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (Minvu) arrived at the complex on Sunday to begin mitigation work and a comprehensive assessment of the site. On Monday, Poduje provided an initial assessment.
"We detected at least five spots with cracks and soil breaking away, which indicate that the ground is quite unstable," the minister said. He added that many homes have water seeping up from the ground and chronic dampness.
The subsidies will go to families living directly opposite the breaks in the streets, where the cracks and sinkholes are, and to those already living in uninhabitable homes. Poduje estimated that the assistance would be ready on Wednesday, October 14.
The survey records 138 damaged homes, mainly affected by leaks, persistent dampness and mold. Emol reported that the minister described a house with moisture levels some 30 points above normal, with walls and bathrooms covered in mold.
The sources describe the scale of the damage differently. La Tercera reports soil breaking away over distances of up to four or five meters. Emol mentions a crack roughly 500 meters long and sinkholes up to five meters deep, which it attributes to rainfall in recent months.
Poduje warned that some cracks are still growing and that the road surfaces have separated. According to the minister, this shows that the ground remains unstable.
The project was built between 2010 and 2014 under the responsibility of the Biobío Housing and Urbanization Service (Serviu). According to Emol, it has roughly 300 houses spread across three terraces on a hill with natural slopes.
The minister called the situation "unacceptable, inexplicable" and said he had spoken with construction company Martabid to demand solutions. He also pointed to possible failures in the compaction and placement of fill, uneven ground, deformed paving and slope failures.
The municipality of Arauco sent 14 official letters from 2013 onward warning of irregularities. Serviu will therefore review the project's records to establish what happened during its development.
The long-term measure is a soil mechanics study, funded by the construction company, with a three-month deadline. An independent university will conduct it, while Minvu's Technical Division for Housing Studies and Promotion (DITEC) will act as the technical counterpart.
The families' future will depend on that report. If the ground can be repaired, it will be fixed. Otherwise, according to Poduje, the families will be relocated to new homes on safe land, which has yet to be identified.
