HAVANA –
A powerful explosion, apparently caused by a natural gas leak on Friday, killed at least eight people and wounded 40 when it blew up the exterior walls of a five-star hotel in the heart of the Cuban capital.
The 96-room Saratoga Hotel has not hosted tourists as it is under renovation, Havana Governor Reynaldo Garcia Zapata told the Communist Party’s Granma newspaper.
“This is not a bomb or an attack. This is a tragic incident,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who visited the site, tweeted.
The blast sent smoke into the air around the hotel, and people on the street stared in awe, one saying “Oh my God,” and cars rattled as they walked away from the scene, a video said. This came as Cuba struggled to revive its key tourism sector, which had been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Taxi buried in rubble at the site of the five-star Saratoga Hotel after a deadly explosion in Old Havana, Cuba, Friday, May 6, 2022 (AP Photo / Ramon Espinosa)
Cuban National Health Minister Jose Angel Portal told the Associated Press that hospitals have admitted about 40 injured, but said the number could rise as demand for people who may be trapped in the rubble of the 19- th century in the old Havana district of the city.
Granma said local authorities said 13 people were missing. An elementary school near the hotel was evacuated and local media reported that no children were injured.
Police cordoned off the area while firefighters and rescuers worked on the wreckage of the hotel, which is about 110 yards (100 meters) from the Capitol building in Cuba. The hotel is often used by visiting VIPs and political figures.
Photographer Michel Figueroa said he was walking past the hotel when “the explosion threw me to the ground and my head still hurts … It was all very fast.”
Worried relatives of people who worked at the hotel showed up at the hospital in the afternoon to look for them. Among them was Beatrice Cespedes Cobas, who was searching for her sister through tears.
Emergency workers walk among the rubble in front of the five-star Saratoga Hotel after a deadly explosion in Old Havana, Cuba, Friday, May 6, 2022 (AP Photo / Ramon Espinosa)
“She had to work today. She’s a housekeeper,” she said. “I work two blocks. I felt the noise and at first I didn’t even connect the “explosion” with the hotel.
Jazira de la Caridad said the blast shook her home one block from the hotel: “The whole building has moved. I thought it was an earthquake.”
“I still have my heart in my hand,” she said.
In addition to the impact of the pandemic on Cuba’s tourism sector, the country is already struggling with sanctions imposed by former US President Donald Trump, which were retained by the Biden administration. The sanctions restricted visits by American tourists to the islands and limited remittances from Cubans in the United States to their families in Cuba.
Tourism began to revive a little earlier this year, but the war in Ukraine sparked a boom in Russian visitors, who accounted for nearly a third of tourists who arrived in Cuba last year.
The blast came when the Cuban government hosted the last day of a tourist convention in the iconic beach town of Varadero aimed at attracting investors.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is due to arrive in Havana late Saturday, and Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the visit would still take place.
Maye Perez said she rushed to the hotel after receiving a call from her husband, Daniel Serra, who works at the hotel’s foreign exchange store.
She said he told her, “I’m fine, I’m fine. They took us out.” But then she failed to contact him.
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