A resident of Matanzas posted a video on Facebook denouncing the massive accumulation of garbage on Embarcadero Street, where the waste occupies entire blocks and the dumpsters block every corner of each intersection, preventing vehicle access.
Dayana González García, the author of the complaint, described the situation as "unlivable" and noted that the affected area is located just a few blocks away from the facilities of Comunales, the state entity responsible for waste collection in the city.
"There is an entire block and extending to another block, filled with garbage... what is most concerning is that at every corner there are trash bins that block all four corners, and cars cannot pass through this street... the neighbors must have a hard time living among rats and bad smells," González García wrote in his post.
The images in the video show construction debris, plastic bags, cardboard, household waste, and stagnant water accumulated on the road, depicting the collapse of urban cleaning services.
The situation on Embarcadero Street is not an isolated case. The Girón Newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party in Matanzas, published a photo report last Monday documenting the accumulation of trash in areas such as Salamanca at the corner of San Carlos, Vía Blanca, Paseo de Martí, and the heights near the Eliseo Noel Camaño Pediatric Hospital.
The official outlet itself warned that "what is at stake is no longer just the image of Matanzas, but the health and future of its inhabitants."
The structural cause of the crisis is the shortage of diesel fuel that is paralyzing the collection fleet across the entire province.
Reynol Valdés García, director of the Municipal Enterprise of Communals in Matanzas, confirmed last Saturday that only 11 trucks are operational out of the 24 or 25 available when working in coordination with the Ministry of Construction.
Of a total staff of 1,400 workers, only 930 are active, with more than 50% of the street sweepers absent, according to the director himself.
The city's landfills are overflowing, and illegal garbage burning is being reported, generating toxic smoke in homes and worsening the health impact on the population.
This situation had already generated outrage in April, when an improvised dump went viral at the intersection of Levante and Solís streets that occupied the entire roadway, with residents reporting nearly a month without garbage collection and describing the area as "a place where rodents and flies reign supreme."
The central government has not provided structural solutions. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero went so far as to ask Cubans to collect the garbage themselves during a weekend in February, implicitly acknowledging the collapse of the state service.
The subsequent announcement by Minister Jesús Otamendiz about sending "interrupted" workers to reinforce cleaning also did not resolve the issue, which continues to worsen month by month.
Embarcadero Street, collapsed just meters from the Comunales facilities, thus becomes the most eloquent symbol of the paradox: the service literally fails at the doorstep of the institution tasked with providing it.
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