Venezuela was historically among the wealthiest economies in South America, particularly from the 1950s to the 1980s, driven by a massive oil boom that began in the 1920s. By 1970, it ranked among the 20 richest countries in the world, with a per-capita GDP higher than Spain, Greece, and Israel, and incomes comparable to those in Finland and Japan.
That's Brave AI on the subject.
Lack of market diversity (over-reliance on oil income) helped create the conditions that "Socialists" (i.e., tyrants using the term "Socialism" to gain power) used to take over the government under Chavez.
"Socialist" Hugo Chavez was inaugurated as president in 1999, and things went to Hell for Venezuelans quickly after that.
In addition to the mass murders, poverty, starvation, tyranny, and general misery that "Socialist" and "Communist" governments are famous for, death via simple lack of concern for human life is common. The huge death toll from the recent earthquakes in Venezuela is an example.
In some jurisdictions, these would be prosecuted as Depraved Heart murders.
Rescuers sifting through rubble left by collapsed buildings in Venezuela recorded a video showing that the structures were built with what appears to be Styrofoam.
The country was rocked by a devastating 7.2 and 7.5 double-earthquake on Wednesday. The official death toll has risen to 1,430 despite foreign and domestic rescue teams pouring into coastal La Guaira, near the capital Caracas, the hardest-hit state.
Top lawmaker Jorge Rodríguez has called it 'the most disastrous event' the country has suffered in the last 123 years, with whole swathes of towns and cities across the country reduced to rubble.
The government has said more than 3,000 people were injured and a similar number were living in shelters, but just under 50,000 people were listed as unaccounted for on a website promoted by the country's political opposition on Sunday.
A video posted to TikTok on Saturday by a Venezuelan rescuer with the handle @maximilianohernan36 indicates that buildings in the country were not built to withstand natural disasters.
In the video, a man can be seen recording himself pulling away pieces of what appears to be collapsed walls with just his hand. The outside of the wall has a thin layer of concrete, while the inside is clearly Styrofoam or a similar material.
'Look at this sh**,' the man recording can be heard saying in Spanish as he pulls away chunks of Styrofoam and digs his finger into the material without resistance.
'No wonder everything crumbled like cardboard,' he later said before he and a fellow rescuer could be heard criticizing the government for the shoddy construction.
. . . Wednesday's double-earthquake leveled entire neighborhoods and blocks of buildings, many of which were constructed as part of socialist revolutionary president Hugo Chavez's 'grand housing mission.'
The program came in response to previous natural disasters that killed and displaced tens of thousands of people in 1999, the first year of Chavez's tenure.
The government built apartment complexes for thousands of families to move into, but it only loosely followed its own laws and codes meant to prepare the buildings for future natural disasters, an earthquake risk-reduction specialist who worked for Chavez's government, Alejandro Linayo, told the Washington Post.
After Chavez died and Nicolas Maduro took power in 2013, the project was accelerated, and construction was rushed to meet a political deadline.
At a four-building apartment complex in La Guaira that was constructed as part of the 'grand housing mission,' three of the buildings were leveled by the earthquakes, destroying at least 960 apartments and burying countless people.
Although it is unclear where the TikTok video of the alleged Styrofoam walls was recorded, it offers insight into the cheap construction methods that the Venezuelan government appears to have used for its socialist housing program.
That cheap construction has come with a high cost of life. The US Geological Survey estimated more than 10,000 deaths were possible from the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 quakes, which would place them among Latin America's deadliest of the last century.
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Building code is one of the few areas in which I am fully in favor of heavy regulation. Gravity doesn't fuck around
LOL!
How true!
Agreed. Most, but not all of the core regulations are built from “lessons learned”, i.e. someone died.
Unfortunately, like most industries, a lot of regulations have been added through lobbying which does nothing but create artificial monopolies.
Structure, fire and general safety should be regulated. Everything else should be done according to budget and location. In other words, if you want to build a four story apartment building, you shouldn’t be forced to put ada stairs and lifts in. Just pretend it’s a hundred years ago and people used to climb stairs.
In Chy-Nah this is known as "tofu construction." Communist bureaucracy runs on graft and corruption. It's how they profit. It works until there's an earthquake.
...in the late 70s early 80s, poured concrete into styro foundation forms was all of the rage...
This should be a reason for investigation of how many countries as concern matter.
On the plus side, the manufacturer of the Styrofoam building products, ACME, INC., noted that they were rated R-19 for insulation purposes.
Adding Styrofoam and thin concrete/ stucko is very common here as well.
Their would have to be more structure on the inside,or they would have collapsed immediately.
That said,I'm sure they built like shit.
If they could get away with it. There is likely a not insignificant number of construction companies and contractors here that would do the same thing here in a heartbeat. The corners some outfits cut already are already riding the line of legality and safety.
This is extremely common, particularly when using foreign contractors. This is the kind of thing that scares me about the Bay Bridge. They literally prefabricated it in China and shipped it here. QC was so bad the US had to send contractors overseas to inspect everything. Such a waste. China pioneered styrofoam collapsed buildings as they are the first ones to get notoriety from this to the best of my memory. There were a few famous bridge collapses there where they used literal landfill materials (actual garbage, diapers, ect...) to fill the bridge casing in addition to Styrofoam components. I am certain some or all of those contractors were "disappeared".