Crews work through 2nd night after Cuba hotel blast kills 27
HAVANA (AP) — Crews worked through a second night searching for victims of a hotel explosion that killed at least 27 people in Cuba’s capital and left more than a dozen missing amid the rubble.
The Hotel Saratoga, a luxury 96-room hotel in Old Havana, was finishing renovations when an apparent gas leak produced a massive explosion on Friday.
Just steps from Cuba’s capitol, the Saratoga’s façade was sheared off, burying workers inside and apparently passersby outside under concrete and twisted metal. The explosion came in the late morning when the streets and plaza in front of the stately hotel would have been full of pedestrians.
On Saturday evening, Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, raised the death toll to 27 with 81 people injured. The dead included four children and a pregnant woman. Spain’s President Pedro Sánchez said via Twitter that a Spanish tourist was among the dead and that another Spaniard was seriously injured.
Some 37 people remained hospitalized, according to the Health Ministry.
Earlier Saturday afternoon, a representative of Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA, which owns the hotel, said 13 of its workers remained missing. Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata said Saturday evening that 19 families had reported loved ones missing and that rescue efforts would continue.
At least one survivor was found early Saturday in the shattered ruins.
Authorities said the cause of the explosion was still under investigation, but believed it to have been caused by a gas leak. A large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker out of the rubble Saturday.
The explosion is another blow to the country’s crucial tourism industry.
Crews busily worked to clean up the surrounding streets and by late Saturday, substantial pedestrian traffic had...
