On Friday, a horrific explosion tore a hole several storey high in the side of Havana’s renowned Hotel Saratoga, killing at least 22 people and wounding up to 70.
The incident at the historic, high-end hotel is believed to have been caused by a gas leak, according to President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
“In no case was it a bomb or an attack,” he later told Reuters as he walked out of the capital’s Calixto Garcia hospital, where several of ‘It was just a really terrible event,” she says.
The blast nonetheless sent a brief wave of panic through the historic old Havana neighbourhood, which has gradually begun reopening to tourists after the pandemic battered the Caribbean island’s crucial travel sector.
The explosion rattled a nearby school with more than 300 students in attendance, health authorities said.
At least 15 children were reported injured as of late Friday evening, the health ministry said, and one child had died.
Cuba’s tourism minister, Juan Carlos Garcia, said no foreigners were killed or injured in the blast, according to initial reports.
The hotel, housed in a more than century-old building, had been closed and only workers were inside at time of the explosion, state-run TV said.
The report was credited to Roberto Enrique Calzadilla, a representative of the military-run company that operates many of the country’s hotels.
In a broadcast interview, Calzadilla said the 96-room hotel had been set to re-open in the next few days and that the workers on site were making final preparations.
“The workers were … making repairs and doing all the work to open the property and in the morning they were resupplying the gas and it seems some accident caused an explosion,” he said.
The blast shrouded the building and surrounding streets in plumes of black smoke and dust rising from the rubble.
The neoclassical style Saratoga Hotel was remodelled by a British company after the fall of the Soviet Union and for many years was considered the place to stay by visiting government officials and celebrities.
Recently, it had lost some of its shine with the opening of new hotels in Havana, but was still a five-star venue.
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