Havana, August 14 (RHC) Cuba expressed on Sunday its gratitude and decorated collaborators from Mexico and Venezuela who participated in the confrontation of a massive fire that affected the industrial zone of the western city of Matanzas.

In an emotion-filled ceremony, the Order of Solidarity was awarded to five experts from those nations who worked in the first battle line to control and extinguish the fire at the Supertanker Base.

The Mexican and Venezuelan cooperators received a replica of Major General Antonio Maceo Grajales's machete from the hands of Army Corps General Alvaro Lopez Miera, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

They were also awarded the Friendship Medal, granted by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba at the behest of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.

During the ceremony, letters sent by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel to his counterparts from Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, were read.

Diaz-Canel highlighted the exemplary attitude of the envoys from those countries, who, without sparing any risk, joined the fight against the flames from the first hours.

These two letters express gratitude for the immediate and courageous response to Cuba's request for international aid and the timely and decisive support of these nations with specialized forces and resources, which made extinguishing the fire possible in five intense days of joint work.

Members of these solidarity contingents highlighted the perfect symbiosis achieved between Mexicans, Venezuelans, and Cubans in these painful days, which made it possible to form a united work team to face the complex task.

With a minute of silence, the participants in the meeting paid tribute to those who died in the disaster, which is considered the worst technological disaster of natural origin that Cuba has had to face.