A fire caused by lightning in an oil storage depot in the Cuban city of Matanzas is out of control, after four explosions that left around 80 injured and 17 firefighters missing, Cuban authorities reported this Saturday.
Firefighters and other experts are still trying to control the flames at the Matanzas Supertanks Base, where the fire broke out during an electrical storm on Friday night, the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines wrote on Twitter.
Subsequently, the Government indicated that it had requested help from international experts from “friendly countries” with experience in the oil sector.
The official Cuban News agency reported that lightning struck one of the tanks, setting it on fire and that the flames later spread to a second tank.
As helicopters flew overhead, dropping water on the flames, a dense plume of black smoke rose from the site, stretching more than 100 kilometers west toward Havana.
The Facebook page of the provincial government of Matanzas indicated that the number of injured reaches 77, while 17 people are missing.
The Presidency of the Republic of Cuba indicated that the 17 disappeared were “firefighters who were in the area closest to the warehouses trying to prevent the flames from spreading.”
The accident comes at a time when Cuba is struggling with fuel shortages. There was no immediate comment on how much oil was consumed by the flames or in danger of being consumed at the storage facility, which has eight giant tanks containing oil used to supply power plants.
The authorities indicated that the Dubrocq district, closest to the place of the fire, had been evacuated and that some residents of the Versailles district, a little further away, had decided to leave their homes.
Many ambulances, police and fire trucks were seen on the streets of Matanzas, a city of around 140,000 inhabitants, located on the Bay of Matanzas.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel traveled to the area of the fire today, authorities said.
Local meteorologist Elier Pila published satellite images of the area with a dense column of black smoke moving west from the fire site and reaching eastern Havana.
“That column could be about 150 kilometers long,” the meteorologist wrote on his Twitter account.
Source: Observadora
