The deathly victims from the disaster at the Matanzas Supertanker Base on August 5, there are already 17. Omar Ravelo, one of the firefighters who was critically hospitalized in the burn room of the Calixto García hospital in Havana, died this Sunday around 4 pm .
As confirmed to this newspaper by one of the health workers linked to the case, Ravelo had “a cardiac arrest on Saturday night from which the doctors could not get him out.” In any case, reports the same source, “there was already a significant failure of several organs, including the kidney, digestive system and immune response, which can happen in cases like this.”
The 63-year-old man was the driver of a 20,000-liter tanker from the Bauta fire department that, while trying to fight the fire in the first tank burnedwas reached by gigantic explosion of the second. “During that moment he was a few meters away, about 10 or 12,” says the health worker, who treated the family closely these months.
Ravelo leaves behind eight orphaned children, including two girls under the age of 10. “A charismatic guy, a rough peasant with his things, but head of the family and super dedicated,” says the worker.
“A charismatic guy, a half-assed peasant with his things, but head of the family and super dedicated”
In the same Calixto García, two other firefighters from the Central Havana command continue in serious condition, Alexander Santillano and José Rolando, the latter, according to the medical source, “with a significant thrombus in one of his legs.”
Without highlighting the fact or giving the name, the Ministry of Public Health reports in its last part, this Monday, that there are 17 deceased. Without further personal details, he also reports seven hospitalized patients, three serious and three “care”. Of them, one is admitted to the Faustino Pérez hospital in Matanzas, two to the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in Havana, and another to the Luis Díaz Soto military hospital, also in the capital.
The balance of the fire, the biggest industrial disaster in the history of Cuba, in addition to the 17 deaths, is 146 injured. Several of the fatalities were young people passing compulsory military serviceand not professional firefighters.
Four of the eight tanks of the Matanzas storage base, the largest facility of its kind on the island to receive and store crude oil, burned completely for days, since lightning, according to the official version, struck one of them last night. of August 5.
The column of smoke became visible in neighboring provinces such as Mayabeque and Havana, the latter located 104 kilometers away.
During the first stages of the fire, Cuba confirmed and thanked the offer of “technical advice” from the USAalthough nothing came to fruition.
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