The work inside the chimney of the Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) Antonio Guiteras de Matanzas continued this Saturday to try to find the missing worker after the collapse accident occurred the previous day.
according to a report of the Cuban News Agency (ACN), in the early hours of the morning the rescue and salvage forces working at the scene of the accident decided to create an alternative access route through which to evacuate the volume of soot and debris that prevented the completion of the task .
Shortly before, it had been decided to withdraw the forces due to the danger of a new landslide caused by the large amount of soot that was concentrated against the wall of the chimney, the newspaper added.
According to statements by Misbel Palmero Aguilar, general director of the Matanzas CTE quoted by the newspaper Giron, The arrival of a machine with which they are working on the recovery of the Hotel Saratoga, in Havana, was expected to create the other access road.
Reports Misbel Palmero Aguilar, Director General of the @CteGuiteras:
“We are moving equipment that works at the Saratoga Hotel, which is a hammer, to break the outer wall, the outer part, and access and remove the soot through another way.”#PeriodicoGiron #Matanzas pic.twitter.com/DW85ECASIF– Girón Newspaper (@PeriodicoGiron) April 8, 2023
It is a hammer with the necessary force to break the outer wall and be able to reach the area of greatest concentration of the remains of the collapse.
Before stopping the work, the groups of rescuers and the Fire Department of the Ministry of the Interior (Minint) had worked uninterruptedly in groups that took turns every hour, according to the information provided to the ACN by Judith Rodríguez, head of the Specialized Group for Relief Operations.
Thanks to this work, it was possible to evacuate three of the four workers from the Specialized Assembly Construction Company who were working at the scene when the accident occurred, one of them dead.
They report a collapse in the chimney of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant
The collapse occurred around 2:30 p.m. this Friday in an area of the chimney known as the ashtray, where the workers carried out cleaning work as part of the recovery strategy of the plant that was stopped for maintenance.
After the rescue of the workers, the legal medicine service of the Faustino Pérez Provincial Hospital confirmed the death of Alexis Bernardo Labrada Junco, 47 years old, a native of Granma and a resident of the municipality of Matanzas.
.