The fire that has devoured the Matanzas Super Tanker Base since Friday worsened this Sunday night when it reached a third fuel tank after the explosions recorded in the second.
Media officialistsas well as private users, broadcast live through social networks the moment when, before midnight, a gigantic flash of the second affected tank appeared and, instantly, a column of fire of several tens of meters rose.
A few minutes earlier, the announcer Humberto López, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, welcomed the fact that the first tank on fire, as a result of lightning according to the official version, was “without flames”, only emanating ” White smoke”. That deposit was extinguished when all the national crude it contained was consumed.
The strategy to fight the flames, which included cooling the affected tanks with seawater and for which they have help on the ground from Mexico and Venezuela, is being unsuccessful.
Despite all of them being called firefighters by government sources, many of them are 18 and 19-year-olds who were undergoing military service.
This morning, reported Cubadebate, A Venezuelan contraption arrived at the scene to pump a chemical agent on the fire. 35 firefighters, specialists and technicians from PDVSA arrived from the Caribbean country on Sunday, with 20 tons of foam and other chemicals. Likewise, a Boeing 737 of the Mexican Air Force also landed on Sunday with 60 rescue soldiers and 16 technicians from Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).
The governor of Matanzas himself, Mario Felipe Sabines Lorenzo, admitted that the fire was revived when the second tank collapsed and the fuel it contained spilled out. Neither authorities nor official journalists mentioned the word “explosion” at any time.
Nor have they made public the list of those missing in the incident, of which only one body, that of the firefighter Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, 60 years old and originally from Cienfuegos, was rescued and identified. The Government has already warned that the recovery of the bodies will not begin until the flames are extinguished.
Despite all of them being called firefighters by government sources, many of them are 18 and 19 year olds who were undergoing military serviceas testified by the desperate calls from family members on social networks.
Some of the names of the disappeared are Fabian Naranjo Nunez, Osmany Blanco Sosa, Andy Amarilys Ramos, Adrian Rodriguez and Leo Alejandro Doval Pérez de Prado.
In its last part, this Sunday, the Ministry of Public Health reported that there are 122 injured, of which five remain in critical condition, three are serious and 16 are receiving care. The rest were discharged.
Some 5,000 people have been evicted from towns near the industrial complex, which houses a total of eight tanks of 50,000 cubic meters (50 million liters) each. The 700,000 barrels of fuel oil sent by Russia in June arrived in one of the eight tanks in the port of Matanzas.
Precisely, Russia is one of the countries to which the Cuban government asked for help. “Cuba requested national assistance after the disaster that hit the country,” Maria Zajárova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in a statement, adding that “the competent entities are in constant contact with the Cuban side to coordinate possible joint actions and provide the necessary assistance.”
The United States declared on Saturday that its law “authorizes US entities and organizations to provide disaster relief and response in Cuba” and that it is “in contact” with Cuban authorities.
The smoke from the fire reaches not only the entire province of Matanzas, but also Pinar del Río and Havana, more than 100 kilometers away, where the air clearly smells of oil since Friday.
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