HAVANA –
A powerful explosion, apparently caused by a gas leak, killed at least 18 people, including a pregnant woman and a child, and wounded dozens on Friday when it blew up the exterior walls of a luxury hotel in the heart of the Cuban capital.
No tourists have stayed at the 96-room Saratoga Hotel in Havana as it is under renovation, Havana Governor Reynaldo Garcia Zapata told the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
“It’s not a bomb or an attack. This is a tragic incident, “President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who visited the site, tweeted.
Diaz-Canel told reporters that 50 adults and 14 children had been hospitalized since the blast and that families in buildings near the hotel affected by the blast had been relocated to safer places.
Cuban state television said the blast was caused by a truck delivering natural gas to the hotel, but did not provide details on how the gas caught fire.
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)
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.
Cuban National Health Minister Jose Angel Portal told the Associated Press that the number of injured could rise as the search for people who may be trapped in the ruins of a 19th-century structure in the city’s Old Havana district continues.
“We are still looking for a large group of people who may be under the rubble,” said Lt. Col. Noel Silva of the Fire Department.
Primary school next to the hotel was evacuated. It is not immediately clear whether the injured children are students.
Police cordoned off the area while firefighters and rescuers worked on the wreckage of the iconic hotel, about 110 yards (100 meters) from Cuba’s Capitol building.
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)
The hotel was renovated for the first time in 2005 as part of a revival by the Cuban government of Old Havana and is owned by the Cuban military’s tourism business division, Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA. The company said it was investigating the cause of the blast and did not respond immediately to an email asking for more details about the hotel and renovations, which are under renovation.
The Saratoga Hotel has been used frequently by visiting VIPs and political figures, including high-ranking US government delegations. Beyoncé and Jay-Z stayed there during a visit to Cuba in 2013.
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.
“She had to work today. She is a housekeeper, “she said. “I work two blocks. I felt the noise and at first I didn’t even connect the explosion to 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. “
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 couldn’t reach him.
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