Historic Tangier Building at Risk of Collapse, Authorities Ignore Warnings

Serious cracks, significant deterioration, cracking... A residential building dating from the time of the International Zone of Tangier, located on Roudani Square, threatens to collapse. While the building is in danger, the local authorities continue to issue housing certificates to the residents, without taking into account its dangerousness, we learn. According to some sources, the local authorities have already received warnings alerting them to the imminent danger, due to the presence of several similar cases in several sites in the city center, such as a building on Rue de la Liberté, other buildings on Place Massira, as well as a building opposite a telecommunications agency on Boulevard Pasteur, but nothing has been done so far, explains Al Akhbar. Worse, the services of the municipality of Tangier have not yet listed this building among the buildings threatened with collapse in the city, nor carried out a comprehensive census of the dilapidated houses, as well as the neighborhoods suffering from a high rate of humidity.

Among the dilapidated houses, there are buildings that trace an important stage in the history of Tangier because of their architectural style and their mode of construction. It is urgent to proceed with the census of these many buildings and to implement an intervention program to renovate them, or to make a decision to demolish them if there is no hope of preserving their original appearance. According to the sources, the insistence of the authorities to ignore the cries of distress of the inhabitants, not to take these measures reveals the real intentions translated by the collusion with the owners of these buildings, waiting for their total collapse to issue a demolition decision and thus erect tall buildings, thus exploiting the land. And to add: "it is no longer necessary to occupy this real estate with buildings that no longer generate enough profitability and that are no longer able to inject billions into the pockets of real estate investors".