Despite acknowledging that the risks still persist, the Cuban government declared the fire in the Matanzas Super Tanker Basefive days after it started, due to a lightning strike according to the official version.
In the four affected deposits, out of a total of eight of 50,000 cubic meters each (50 million liters), and their surroundings, some active points remain, where the emergency teams are located, reports the Efe agency.
In statements by the second chief of the Cuban Fire Department, Daniel Chávez, the work is focused on cooling the area, where he says that “minor” flames can persist for days.
The images shown by the official media that have accessed the scene of the incident, unprecedented in the history of Cuba, are devastating. Alongside the completely melted tanks, burned fire trucks and other vehicles can be seen. That is the scene where 14 people disappeared while fighting the flames.
Next to the completely melted tanks, fire trucks and other charred vehicles can be seen
The authorities still do not provide data on the disappeared, mostly young people who passed the military service and that they went to fight the fire without any experience, and they only consider the firefighter dead Juan Carlos Santana Garrido60 years old.
In your last statementthe Ministry of Public Health raised the number of injured to 128, of which 20 are hospitalized: 5 critical, 2 serious and 13 with “care report”.
Far from offering information not only on the fatalities but also on the cost of the incident for the perpetually diminished Cuban economy, the official press focuses this Thursday on extol the president Miguel Díaz-Canelvisiting the destroyed facilities.
Thus, they collect the words of the designated president: that “what happened in the last few hours did not paralyze the country, because many things have been done to continue improving, and that is demonstrative” and that “there was serenity, the ability to reach consensus on how to work”.
Roberto Morales Ojeda, member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the PCC, even describes as a “feat” the “integrated, coordinated work, with an extraordinary effort” that they displayed.
The newspaper note Granma, with the pompous title The five days that have shaken Cuba, and the lessons learned forever, He cites in half a sentence the “25 flights from Mexico and Venezuela”, countries whose help to extinguish the fire has been fundamental.
Regarding the disappeared, they simply refer to the statements of the Minister of Health, José Angel Portal Miranda: “the experts who will be in charge of the rescue and identification have been preparing”
Those nations contributed 127 specialists, 45,000 liters of retardant foam and 8 armored breathable air tanks, apart from other materials.
Regarding the disappeared, they simply refer to the statements of the Minister of Health, José Angel Portal Miranda: “the experts who will be in charge of the rescue and identification” of the bodies have been preparing.
Refering to environmental pollutionwhich worries the residents of Matanzas as well as those of other neighboring provinces and even those of Havana, the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, assured that the indicators “are below danger figures” and that “there are no patients have arrived at hospitals with contamination-related effects”.
Another unanswered question is what could have happened for the tragedy to occur. The Matanzas Supertanker Base, product of an agreement signed between Cuba and Venezuela, is a facility that he’s barely ten years old.
Some specialists, like Alexandr Goffsteina lifeguard and former head of the Russian Rescuers Readiness Center, explained that “the fact that the fire spread from one reservoir to others shows that there were flaws in the very structure of the base, which led to a disaster of such proportion.”
However, the hydraulic engineers Eric Cabrera Estupiñán and Alejandro Alomá Barceló, who worked on the design of the fire-fighting system of the facilities, inaugurated in 2012, assured in an interview with neighborhood journalism that the Base had when it was built “the security measures that it had to have”, of the “highest international standard”, including a fire station.
“On the top there is a cooldown ring. I didn’t see that cooldown ring work”
Despite the fact that in this, as Cabrera expressed, “a lot was invested”, the troops that were sent to fight the fire included at the beginning boys who passed the military service in the Fire Department number 3 of the Varadero airport, 25 kilometers from the incident.
“Apparently what happened is that the lightning generated a very strong energy,” speculated the engineer, and took the upper part of the first tank. “At the top there is a cooling ring. I didn’t see that cooling ring working,” he explained, although he did note that “the cooling system of the neighboring tanks was working.”
Alomá, for his part, added that the tank where the incident began “was practically destroyed from the first moment, at least the upper part, due to the many gases that had accumulated there.”
Both specialists declared that they have no way of knowing if the fire detection system, which automatically starts cooling measures in the facilities, worked correctly. “We have no idea if the pumps were able to move the amount of water required for cooling,” Alomá said.
Nor did they see that the necessary chemical substances were used in this case – a kind of foam detergent that eliminates oxygen in contact with the fire and, therefore, extinguishes it – but they do not venture any reason.
In a 2020 postSome specialists warned of the danger of storing fuel for more than two months, referring to the conditions in which the reserves kept by Petróleos de Venezuela are found, in tanks similar to those of the Matanzas Base.
The chemical engineer Fernando Morales, for example, explained that “stopping the production of an oil well causes damage to it,” and Eudis Girot, executive director of the Unitary Federation of Petroleum Workers of Venezuela, assured that the “structural composition” of the deposits is not designed to hold oil for a long time.
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