Cuban President checks progress of work at Saratoga Hotel

HAVANA, Cuba, May 10 (ACN) Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez visited the area around the Saratoga Hotel to learn about the onsite efforts to find anyone who might still be under the rubble after the tragic accident that occurred there five days ago.

Díaz-Canel, who came accompanied by Party and government leaders and army officers, received a comprehensive explanation of the ongoing search for three employees of the hotel—two waitresses and a cook—who were still missing. While in the premises, the rescuers found the lifeless body of one of them.

Díaz-Canel asked about the repair work on the surrounding buildings, particularly the Concepción Arenal elementary school, whose children went back to the classrooms on Monday in other nearby educational institutions.

Colonel Luis Carlos Guzmán, chief of the Fire Department of the Republic of Cuba, said that the search-and-rescue operations will continue nonstop, albeit not without observing every security measure on account of the existing risks.

Tamara Placeres Pérez, first secretary of the Party in Old Havana, pointed out that the reconstruction of the school and of the Martí Theater, a jewel of the city's heritage also damaged by the blast, should be completed in June and September, respectively.

Other tasks prioritized by the Cuban government include the provision of dwellings for about 22 families who lost their homes to the explosion, she remarked.

According to the latest report issued by the Ministry of Public Health, 43 people died (one of them still unidentified) and 96 were injured as a result of the explosion that occurred in the Saratoga during gas unloading operations from a tanker truck.