New Government Housing Already Falling Apart In The Turkistan Region

In Qazygurt, orphans and people with disabilities who received government-funded housing are now at risk.

The apartment building began to fall apart just a year after residents moved in. Walls are cracking, and floors are sinking. The building itself is only three years old, and 180 million tenge was allocated from the budget for its construction. Orda.kz learned about the living conditions.

Residents are demanding that the building be declared unsafe, but local authorities refuse. They insist there is no cause for concern and believe people can continue living in a building with cracks.

Aigul Yergeshova received an apartment through a government program three years ago. She says the walls began to crumble within a year. She had to move to another apartment in the same courtyard, but the situation there is just as bad.

The cracks in the walls are so large you can see into neighboring apartments.

Every night I sleep in this building with anxiety. It creaks and makes loud noises. I'm afraid it will collapse. And how do the officials sleep? Don’t they think about the people? We waited so many years to get this apartment, and this is the result. Why pay for such an apartment? If I had the money, I would have built a normal house myself, says Yergeshova.

Orphans, single mothers, and people with disabilities were assigned apartments in this building. They had been on the waiting list for years. One of them is pensioner Ultuar Tantabayeva.

She is afraid to spend the night there. Two neighboring apartments are destroyed. They have no windows, doors, or walls.

We thought we’d get an apartment and live peacefully. But our joy was short-lived. The officials hide as soon as they see us. They won’t even let us meet the district Akim, she says.

The site where the new buildings stand used to be occupied by old apartment blocks. Residents say the basements were constantly flooded.

The old building was declared unsafe and demolished, and new housing was built for vulnerable residents.

The apartments were leaking due to poor sewerage. The building’s foundations sank, and the interior walls cracked. The inner soil layers weren’t properly compacted. Work is currently underway to repair the cracks,commented Torekhan Tokenov, chief specialist in the Qazygurt district construction and architecture department.

Residents are asking for the building to be declared unsafe. The cracks are growing more numerous every day.

But experts consider the building safe. The administration is only making cosmetic repairs to the damaged areas. Residents fear that one day they will be buried under the rubble.

Original Author: Nazerke Yerkinbekkyzy