MIAMI, United States.- The Cuban regime posthumously decorated the firefighters who died in the fire that affected the Matanzas Supertanker Base (west) in August, the EFE news agency reported on Saturday, citing local media.
“By Presidential Decree, the six members of the Matanzas Fire Department, who fell in the line of duty during the incident, received the Second Degree June 6 Order,” said the daily official. Granma.
The decorated ones were the first non-commissioned officer Dios del Nazco, Luis Ángel Álvarez, Pablo Ángel López and the soldiers Leo Alejandro Doval, Adriano Rodríguez and Fabián Naranjo, according to the Cuban authorities.
Human rights activists and some NGOs have criticized that among the dead there were young people who were doing military service, however, the government has not said a word about young peoplewho were no more than 20 years old.
The massive incident, which began on August 5 in the Matanzas industrial zone and was declared extinct a week later, leaving 16 dead and 146 injured, according to Cuban authorities.
Considered the largest industrial accident recorded in the history of the Caribbean country, the fire burned four of the eight crude oil tanks at the Supertanker Base in the province of Matanzas, the most important on the island.
According to the island’s authorities, the reason for the incident was an electrical discharge that hit one of the tanks in the industrial park.
The fire spread from the first tank to three other tanks in the facility -with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters each-, causing strong explosions and flames of several tens of meters.
On August 18, the Cuban government decreed two days of official mourning. For its part, the bone remains – more than 700 in total – could only be recovered after the fire was extinguished.
The Cuban experts, after consulting international references, assured that it was “impossible” to identify the remains due to the degree of calcination of the fragments found in the disaster area.
According to the account of the events of the Cuban authorities, the flames reached 2,000 degrees Celsius.
Havana has increased imports this year from Venezuela, Russia and other countries, with the aim of covering a fuel deficit that has caused energy rationing and long lines of drivers in front of the stations, but the fire left the already critical situation economy in a state of impoverishment.
In this regard, this Friday it was learned that a tanker carrying 300,000 barrels of diesel fuel from a Russian port was diverted to Cuba after trying to reach a Colombian port.
The oil tanker had marked Cartagena as its intended destination after passing the Panama Canal, but later changed its route and revised its destination to the Cuban terminal in Matanzas.
Flying the Liberian flag, the Transsib Bridge loaded at the Russian port of Nakhodka, in the far east of the country, and entered the Cartagena anchorage zone early on Friday, but did not unload there, according to Refinitiv Eikon data. explained the Reuters news agency.
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