Rescuers’ frantic search after hotel explosion

HAVANA: Rescuers combed through what remained of a luxury Havana hotel on Sunday as the death toll rose to 27 after a powerful explosion ripped through the famed celebrity haunt.

No survivors were found in the upper floors of the prestigious Saratoga Hotel, and rescuers said they were now concentrating on the jumbled debris filling the twolevel basement of the neoclassical building.

“My daughter works in the Saratoga – she’s been there (under the rubble) since … yesterday morning, and in all this time I still don’t know anything,” an anguished

Yaumara Cobas told journalists.

So far, 11 hotel employees have been identified as the dead, while four children and adolescents are also among the fatalities. Of the 37 people in hospital, more than a dozen were listed in critical or serious condition.

The hotel had been closed for business during renovation work and a spokesman said Friday’s explosion happened while a gas tank was being refilled by a tanker truck.

It tore off large parts of the facade, blew out windows and destroyed cars parked outside the five-star hotel.