The health authorities raised this Sunday to 30 the number of deaths in the explosion due to a gas leak at the Saratoga hotel in Havana.
The Cuban Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) updated at 11:30 in the morning the figures of this tragedy that shook the historic and tourist heart of the Cuban capital on Friday.
Among the deceased were four minors and a pregnant woman. They were all of Cuban nationality -mostly residents of Havana-, except for the Spanish citizen Cristina López-Cerón Ugarte.
The total number of injured rose to 84, of which 24 remain hospitalized.with 19 adults and five minors.
Among those admitted to medical centers, seven people remain in critical condition and six qualify as serious. In addition there are 11 minor injuries.
Among these wounded there is a Cuban-American and a Spaniard, César Román Santalla, partner of the deceased Spanish woman.
Rescue efforts continue relentlessly amid the rubble of the Saratoga hotelmore than 48 hours after the explosion that caused a section of the building to collapse -of seven heights- and the facade of the three lower floors collapsed.
These efforts are focused on gaining access to the double basement of the building, where it is believed that more people could be trapped. In those two underground floors there was a warehouse, shops and administration offices.
The authorities have indicated that they were looking for 19 people (although this figure has not been updated when raising the death toll), of which 13 were hotel workers.
The mayor of Old Havana, Alexis Acosta, indicated in statements to Efe that the "rescue and salvage actions" They have been running for 44 hours without pauses.
"At dawn, intense work has been done to reach the basement of the hotel, which was the service part of the hotel where the workers who were there that day and who have not yet appeared are obviously located. They must be in that area"he explained.
The Cuban government has advanced that it seems that it was a gas leak, as preliminary investigations point out. A commission is investigating the facts.
At the time of the explosion, a liquefied gas tanker truck was parked in front of the hotel and refilling a hotel tank. It is believed that the hose could have a crack.
Díaz-Canel already spoke this Friday of a "unfortunate accident" and ruled out that it was "a bomb" or an attack.
Another 17 neighboring buildings were affected by the accident and in the next few days a technical evaluation will be carried out on three blocks and the hotel itself to see if they are "salvageable" Or do you have to demolish them?
The Saratoga was built in 1880 and from 1911 it functioned as a hotel. Its last restoration took place in 2005, according to official media.
With five stars, the hotel was considered one of the most luxurious in the city. The establishment is located in the Paseo del Prado, one of the main avenues of Old Havana, in the historic heart of the Cuban capital, one of its great historical claims.
