A woman died in a fire registered this Tuesday on the third floor of a multi-family building identified with the number 305 on Industria street, between Neptuno and San Miguel, in Centro Habana. As confirmed by neighbors 14ymediowhen the victim could be helped “it was too late”.
“The woman asked for help for a long time” and the neighbors could not do anything, says a resident of the area. “She was brought down burned, they gave her oxygen, but it was too late, she died,” he adds, specifying that the firefighters took a long time to arrive.
So far, the cause of the accident has not been disclosed, nor is there an official version of the events. Neighbors told this newspaper that the victim was a nurse by profession.
The building where the fire occurred has an old liquor store known as La Internacional on its ground floor. It is a state business that has been badly damaged by humidity and lack of repairs, and has been closed for years.
“The woman asked for help for a long time” and the neighbors could not do anything
In recent years, many fires reported in Cuban homes and that have claimed several lives, have been caused by electric motorcycles. At the end of 2020, two elderly people died on San José street, also in Centro Habana, when a motorine that was parked next to others in a private workshop.
That same year, another large fire destroyed three houses on a plot and two neighboring houses in the municipality of Diez de Octubre.
Last September, a fire in a house in the city of Matanzas caused the death of a 19-year-old girl and two wounded, a 13-year-old boy and a 20-year-old boy.
Just a few months earlier, in May, another fire from a motorine caused the death of three members of the same family in the city of Sancti Spíritus, including a seven-year-old boy. The vehicle, which was connected to charging the lithium battery, exploded inside the house. The accident became the most serious of its kind in Cuba. In 2019, there were 208 fires involving electric motorcycles with lithium batteries, 164 of them serious and 44 minor.
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