Tribute paid to victims of the Saratoga Hotel

Havana, May 6 (RHC)-- Relatives, friends, neighbors, members of the Red Cross, youth, union and government leaders paid tribute today to the victims of the regrettable explosion at the Saratoga Hotel, on the first anniversary of the accident that took the lives of 47 people.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, recalled in his Twitter account the sad event "One year since the Saratoga Hotel explosion. Still fresh in memory the Dantesque images of the horror, the avalanche of solidarity that arose in our people and the heroism of men and women who came to the rescue. Days of great pain and unity".

Present at the tribute were Raul Alejandro Palmero, secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Union of Young Communists in Havana; the first secretary of the PCC Municipal Committee of Old Havana,Tamara Placeres Perez, among other authorities of the province and the municipality of
Centro Habana, according to the Tribuna de La Habana newspaper.

On May 6, 2022, in the morning hours, a deflagration occurred when a tanker truck was supplying gas to the hotel facility.

The explosion caused the death of 47 people and 99 injuries, most of them hotel workers and people who were passing by the place at the time.

It also destroyed the facades of the three lower floors of the building and affected 23 buildings in the area, including 17 residential buildings.

For more than 144 hours, rescue brigades worked at the site of the disaster, and after concluding the efforts to locate and rescue the bodies, President Miguel Díaz-Canel decreed official mourning on May 13 and 14.