Hotel Saratoga in Cuba 80% destroyed

Of the 51 workers who were part of the hotel or were working on the renovation, 23 died. To date, 42 deaths have been recorded.

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Although it was to have reopened in grand style on Tuesday following being closed for two years, Cuba’s luxury Saratoga hotel is now a mass of rubble following an explosion on Friday that left at least 42 people dead. Management officials said the same day that 80% of the building was damaged.

Meanwhile, rescuers have been working continuously since Friday, when the explosion occurred, apparently caused by a gas leak in a tanker truck. Their tasks include removing debris to recover the bodies of more victims still buried.

Can read: Death toll rises to 35 from explosion at Saratoga hotel in Havana

“The country’s leadership has made the search for our colleagues a top priority,” Roberto Enríquez, a spokesman for the company Gaviota, the administrator of the Saratoga and one of the business entities of the Armed Forces, told a group of journalists. “When it is concluded, we think we are quite close… There will be a multidisciplinary team, we have already conceived it, that will delve into the current situation of that building.”

“Today, according to specialists, the facility is approximately 80% damaged, but all this needs to be confirmed,” said Enríquez, who refused to say whether it would be demolished or used once more as a hotel.

Of the 51 workers who were part of the hotel or were working on the remodeling, 23 died, including two managers, technical services staff, gastronomy, reception, security, marketing and insurance, said Enriquez. Three employees, two waitresses and a cook are still being searched for in the rubble.

Dozens of people were injured in the explosion that occurred on May 6 at around 11 a.m. at the Saratoga, a late 19th-century building located in the middle of Old Havana. The hotel had been closed to the public for two years due to the pandemic and following its remodeling it was expected to open precisely this Tuesday.

A report from the Ministry of Health on Tuesday morning said the death toll had risen to 42 and regarding 17 were hospitalized.

During a meeting of a temporary monitoring group created by the government, the first secretary of the powerful Communist Party of the Capital, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, reported that 38 homes were affected and that 95 people had to be housed in a small hotel in the east of the city, the official Cubadebate website reported on Tuesday.

Of the three apartment buildings severely damaged by the blast, one of the buildings was technically determined to be demolished.

The accident comes as the island was beginning to recover in its vital tourism sector, an economic engine that was affected by both COVID-19 and by US sanctions pushing for a change of political model in the Caribbean nation and limiting travel permits for its citizens.

The Saratoga was the place chosen to stay by celebrities such as Beyonce and her husband Jay-Z, or the singer Madonna with her children.

Tourism officials dismissed the accident as a setback for the sector as a whole. “Cuba’s image will continue to be that of a destination of peace, tranquility and security,” said Tourism Ministry spokeswoman Carmen Casals. “This is a terrible accident, we regret the loss of human life and the victims, but we will recover.”