26 dead as Havana hotel is destroyed in tanker blast
THE death toll from a gas tanker explosion that tore through a five-star hotel in the Cuban capital Havana reached 26 last night, with more feared dead in the rubble.
Rescuers yesterday plucked one survivor to safety from the shattered ruins of the hotel and were using search dogs in the hope of finding more.
Authorities had identified 22 of the dead last night and said 18 were from Havana.
A pregnant woman and a child were among those killed in the blast at the Hotel Saratoga, which has been popular with celebrities and whose guests have included Mick Jagger, Madonna and Beyonce.
The 19th-Century building had been undergoing renovations ahead of a reopening on Tuesday, but many staff were inside when a gas tanker parked nearby exploded.
Windows at Cuba’s Capitol building more than 100 yards away were shattered.
The front of the green-and-white neoclassical-style hotel was almost entirely torn off with beds, tattered curtains and televisions in the exposed rooms clearly visible from the road outside. Debris, including broken metal awnings, balconies and chunks of stone, was scattered across a 300ft radius.
Yazira de la Caridad, who lives nearby, said she heard the explosion and ‘thought it was an earthquake’.
As firefighters and rescue workers searched the rubble, Beatriz Cespedes Cobas was among those looking for loved ones.
‘She had to work today. She is a housekeeper,’ she said of her sister.
‘I work two blocks away. I felt the noise and, at first, I didn’t even associate the explosion with the hotel.’
Cuba’s President Miguel DiazCanel visited the site and later wrote on Twitter: ‘Havana is in shock today after the accidental explosion of a gas tank at the Hotel Saratoga, which caused a large part of the building to collapse.’ While the hotel had no resident guests, the incident will do little to help Cuba’s crucial, but fragile, tourism industry. Even before the pandemic, the country was struggling with US sanctions that limit visits by Americans.
More recently, the war in Ukraine has slashed Russian visitor numbers. They had made up a third of tourists.
The Hotel Saratoga was built as a warehouse in 1880 before being converted into a hotel in 1933.