A lightning-triggered fire at a fuel depot in western Cuba has injured more than 60 people, three of them critically, officials said on Saturday.
The official Granma newspaper attributed the fire, which started Friday night, to an “electrical discharge” that struck a tank at the depot outside the city of Matanzas, 100 kilometers east of Havana.
The fire spread from one fuel tank to a second early Saturday, sending a huge plume of black smoke into the sky.
The Faustino Perez Provincial Hospital reported that 67 people were injured, 15 of them in serious or very serious condition.
And the Cuban Presidency said 17 others, mostly firefighters, were listed as missing. About 800 people were evacuated from the area, according to regional officials.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero oversaw the rescue effort.
When Yuney Hernandez and her family heard an initial explosion, they left their home just two kilometers from the depot, the 32-year-old mother told AFP. A few hours later they returned.
But then around 5 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Saturday, they heard more explosions “as if parts of the tank were falling off,” she said.
Granma magazine quoted a senior official at the state-owned Cubapetroleo company as saying the fire was due to “a failure in the lightning rod system that could not withstand the energy of the electrical discharge.”
The depot powers Antonio Guiteras’ thermoelectric power plant, but the plant’s operations have not ceased, the official said.
The fire came at a time when the island — with an aging power grid and persistent fuel shortages — was facing growing difficulties in meeting increased energy demands in the face of intense summer heat.
Since May, authorities in some regions have imposed power cuts of up to 12 hours a day – sparking at least 20 protests in the island’s interior.
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