At least 22 people have died and another 64 have been injured.some extremely serious, in a very strong explosion from an exhaust of gas in a luxury hotel in the center of Havana.
The Presidency of Cuba informed on Twitter that Among the deceased there is a minor and a pregnant woman.and that among the injured there are 14 minors (three critical and two serious).
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These figures are not final and could rise in the coming hours, as advances in the tasks of debris removal from the Saratoga hotelemblematic of the historic center of Havana.
The President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who quickly went to the scene, stressed that it was an “unfortunate accident” and ruled out that it was a bomb or an attack. He added that the Preliminary investigations point to a gas leak.
He indicated that an investigation commission has been set up and also a plan to care for the families of the victims and to the residents of the 17 residential buildings that have been affected by the explosion.
The state tourism group Gaviota, owner of the Saratoga hotel, explained that the establishment was not open to the publicbut what was scheduled to reopen on May 10, after two years closed due to the pandemic.
The building, however, was not empty. Inside was a team of employees, who worked on the set-up of the property, and a group of managerswho were participating in a meeting.
The Minister of Tourism, Juan Carlos Garcia GrandeHe assured that among the wounded there are no foreigners. yesNo details have been released about the deceased at this time.
EXPLOSION AND COLLAPSE
The event occurred minutes before 11 in the morning, when a liquefied gas tanker truck was serving a hotel tank. The most likely thesis is that the explosion was due to a crack in the truck’s hose.
The explosion caused a section of the building -seven stories high- to collapse and the facade of the first three floors to come off, causing a rain of tons of rubble on a normally busy sidewalk. The tanker truck was partially buried.
The explosion also caused a large column of smoke, which was visible in much of the capital.
Firefighters, police officers and emergency teams quickly rushed to the scene of the events, taking those affected to several nearby hospitals.
A group of specialists then began to clear debris from the area in search of possible victims trapped in the building, tasks that lasted until night.
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In parallel, the accident tanker, which still had highly flammable liquefied gas inside, was lifted with a crane and with great precautions, and it was deposited in a large truck for its transfer.
In the next few days, a technical inspection of the building will have to be carried out to decide if it can be restored or structural damage advises its demolition.
HISTORICAL CENTER AND TOURISM
The Saratoga was housed in a neoclassical-style building built in 1880 and operating as a hotel since 1911. After undergoing a comprehensive reform, it was reopened in 2005.
One of the most luxurious in the Cuban capital, among the Saratoga patrons have featured American artists Beyoncé and Madonna, the German dressmaker Karl Lagerfeld and the singer of the Rolling Stones, the British Mick Jagger.
The hotel was in the heart of the area Old Havana, next to the Capitolone of the main tourist attractions in the country.
The event occurs when the The island’s tourism sector tries to reactivate itself after two years of forced hiatus by the pandemic, which has exacerbated the country’s economic difficulties.
Tourism is the second largest sector of the Cuban Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with a contribution of 10% in 2019, and the second source of foreign exchange earnings.
Tourism Minister pointed in this direction when he assured, when visiting the place of the sinisterthat the workers who were in the Saratoga had “tremendous hope in the recovery of the sector.”
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Cuba has received more than 450,000 tourists between January and April and aspires to achieve 2.5 million foreign visitors for the year as a whole. The figure is significantly higher than the previous year, but still far from the pre-pandemic volume.
Governments of America and Europe, mainly, They have sent a message of condolences to Cuba and shown their solidarity with the Caribbean country after this event.
