Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press, Published on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, 8:51 PM EDT
HAVANA (AP) – The elegant Saratoga Hotel was due to open in Havana on Tuesday after a two-year break from a pandemic. Instead, it was a day of mourning for the 43 people known to have died in an explosion that tore the building apart.
Emergency workers continued to search for other victims through the ruins as experts began to consider the fate of the 19th-century building, a former warehouse converted into a hotel at the turn of the last century.
Roberto Enriquez, a spokesman for the military travel company Gaviota, which runs Saratoga, said experts estimate that 80 percent of the hotel was damaged by Friday’s blast, which threw tons of concrete into busy streets just one block from the Capitol. of the country and seriously damaged neighboring structures.
He said that when the rescue effort is over, the authorities will consider more deeply what to do with the structure.
Officials said on Tuesday night that the 43rd body had been found, but it was not immediately known whether the latest victim had worked at the hotel.
Enriquez said earlier in the day that 51 people were working to prepare the hotel for its reopening, and 23 of them were among the confirmed dead – managers and maids, cooks and receptionists, security staff and technicians. He said three workers remained unaccounted for, believed to be buried under the rubble.
Authorities said they suspected the cause was a gas leak as a tanker was serving the building.
The health ministry said Tuesday night that the death toll had risen to 43, including at least one Spanish tourist. Seventeen people remained in hospital.
Havana Communist Party leader Luis Antonio Torres Iribar said 38 homes had been affected by the blast and 95 people had to be relocated, according to Cubadebate’s official website.
He said one of the neighboring buildings would have to be demolished.
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