The Telégrafo hotel in Havana, reopened by the Axel chain just March 2, is closed to the public “for repairs”. This is how an employee dressed in civilian clothes who guarded the place responded this Wednesday to a young couple who wanted to enter the restaurant of the place to have lunch and found the tables of the portal removed and scaffolding under the arches.
“What repairs can be made of this magnitude in a hotel that has just been inaugurated?” One of them wondered as he walked away from the place. On the phone, an employee responded to the question: “They are making changes to the gas and water lines.”
The woman did not give more details, but the words “gas” and “hotel” immediately refer to a specific event in Cuba: the explosion of the Saratoga, which shocked the entire island and media around the world. last May 6.
The accident, which claimed the lives of 47 people and wounded a hundred, continues to be mired in controversy and the results of the police investigation into its causes have not yet been made public, but from the first moments the Government assured that it took place while gas was being loaded into the buildingwhich was about to be reopened after the covid-19 pandemic.
On the phone, an employee answered the question: “They are making changes to the gas and water pipes”
“A liquefied gas bullet was being enabled in the hotel. The cook smells gas, checks the connections and discovers that there was a crack in the supply hose,” the official press then published with a source Alexis Acosta Silva, mayor of Old Havana.
The sudden closure of the Telegraph, which the authorities have not reported, may have to do with the review of all tourist facilities of this type to avoid a similar tragedy in the future. Another girl who regularly attends the hotel indicates that they explained to her that the problem was in the “sanitary pipes” and there were leaks in some bathrooms towards the rooms below. “You don’t understand, a new hotel, but that’s what they told me,” says the young woman.
The employee who answered this newspaper by telephone indicates that they do not know when they are going to open again and urged them to call “within a month.” The Web page of the hotel chain does not even allow you to select reservation dates for its branch in Havana. “We don’t have any rooms,” says a window that pops up automatically.
The clientele of the Telegraph was surprised this Wednesday. Featured as the first LGBTI hotel friendly from Havana, the establishment became in these few months a meeting place for the capital’s gay community, who came not so much to stay – something prohibitive for most Cuban pockets – but to have breakfast, lunch or dinner, and even to consume at the pool bar, located on the upper floor.
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