The journalist Yoani Sánchez published a video this Wednesday, filmed from the balcony of her apartment, 14 stories high in Havana, showcasing an active pile of burning trash near Cerro, with a statement that encapsulates the reality of the Cuban capital: "Havana smells of burning garbage".
From his terrace, Sánchez filmed the flames and smoke while describing an unrecognizable city. "It's strange, very strange the day I stand on the terrace of my 14-story home and don't see a fire, a fire like this one of burning garbage", he stated.
The journalist described the atmosphere she breathes in every morning when she looks out: "As soon as I get up and take my first breath of fresh air, the feeling I have is that of a city that suffocates, a city that smells of burnt garbage, incinerated plastics, cardboard, and decay that has passed through the keys."
Sánchez pointed directly to the collapse of community services as the cause of the phenomenon: "People are fed up with community services not coming to collect the trash, and so they set it on fire."
"This is a very, very unpleasant and very dangerous situation we are facing," he warned, emphasizing that the burning of waste "has become an increasingly common practice" in the capital.
The complaint is not isolated.
Since February 2026, open-air garbage burning sites have been documented in Regla, Diez de Octubre, Lawton, San Miguel del Padrón, and Puentes Grandes.
In that last municipality, the authorities turned the Metropolitan Park into a burning site, just fifty meters from the Clínico Quirúrgico de 26 hospital, in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality.
The root of the problem is structural: in February 2026, only 44 out of the 106 available garbage trucks were operational due to a lack of fuel, while the city produces between 24,000 and 30,000 cubic meters daily of solid waste.
The Center for Neurosciences of Cuba warned in February 2026 that the incomplete combustion of waste releases carbon monoxide, dioxins, furans, and at least thirty toxic compounds, with documented effects on respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological health, especially in children and the elderly.
The regime's response has been insufficient.
The Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Marrero called on February 28 for a "mass hygiene campaign" with more than 450 teams, and the government announced a foreign investment project with Portuguese capital to modernize waste management.
In March, he also ordered that workers affected by the energy crisis be sent to reinforce community services.
None of those measures have halted the daily burning, as documented in the video by Sánchez published this Wednesday under the hashtags #EstaCiudadMata, #Cuba, and #SOSCuba.
The irony of the context is striking: Havana has held the title of "Wonder City" since June 7, 2016, awarded by the New7Wonders Foundation, a distinction that the regime used as a tool for tourism promotion and which today contrasts sharply with the columns of toxic smoke rising above its rooftops each morning.
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