A state vehicle caught fire this Saturday afternoon on Hospital street between Humboldt and 25, in Centro Habana. The driver was able to get away from the car without being injured, but the neighbors experienced moments of fear due to the delay of the firefighters in reaching the place and the high flames that caused the combustion.
“It burned completely, there was nothing left, but they don’t let anyone get close, the plague reaches several blocks away,” lamented a neighbor from nearby Jovellar street who noticed what was happening because of “the yelling that people raised.” “The smoke is seen from afar and it is difficult to breathe in the surroundings,” she told 14ymedio.
Despite the insistent calls from the neighbors to the number of firefighters, the troops took long minutes to arrive. “The tongues of fire are quite high and the fear is that they will damage power lines or spread to nearby buildings,” feared a resident on nearby Humboldt Street, just a few meters from the burned-out vehicle.
“The car was parked in the Party workshop [Comunista de Cuba] and when it started to catch fire, the driver was able to push it out the ramp, so the fire did not affect the other vehicles that were in the premises,” adds the neighbor.
“The tongues of fire are quite high and the fear is that they will damage power lines or spread to nearby buildings,” a resident feared.
A while later, this newspaper verified the arrival at the scene of a fire truck, a tanker truck and several members of the Ministry of the Interior who cordoned off the area. The flames were controlled and the residents returned to their homes. Traffic was interrupted for hours on Hospital Street and other surrounding sections.
A state vehicle caught fire this Saturday on Hospital Street, Centro Habana. The driver was able to get away without being injured and the combustion caused high flames. https://t.co/W6tiiJKzmx pic.twitter.com/ZFU7thnJvp
— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) April 23, 2023
The causes of the accident are being investigated but, due to fuel shortages, it is common for drivers to keep drums of gasoline or diesel in the trunk of cars that they have managed to buy on the black market or after several days of queues at the service centers
Vehicle fires are recurrent in Cuba, especially electric motorcycles. “Since 2017, fires have been manifested in mopeds or electric motorcycles. In 2019 there were 221 fires and until October 2020 a total of 485 were reported,” state television said more than two years ago.
The situation has not improved over time. In September 2022, two people were seriously injured in the fire of a house in Luyanoin the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre.
The flames were controlled and the residents returned to their homes. Traffic was interrupted for hours on Hospital Street and other surrounding sections
On that occasion, the neighbors told 14ymedio that the fire started at four in the morning due to the combustion of an electric motorcycle that was charging, the same thing that apparently happened this Saturday in Central Havana. The flames were then fanned because the family had stored several fuel drums.
In June 2022, the explosion of another engine while it was being loaded caused a fire in the municipality of Cerro that destroyed other 12 such vehicles and two automobiles.
In 2021, a 60-year-old woman and one of her seven-year-old grandchildren died in a fire caused by the explosion of another motorcycle in Sancti Spíritus, and, months later, another 19-year-old girl died in a similar incident in Matanzas.
In December 2020, another accident of this type ended the lives of two elderly people on San José street in Centro Habana.
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