The Cuban government decreed one day of official mourning starting Friday morning after search and rescue efforts at the site of a powerful explosion in the Saratoga Hotel in Old Havana ended, bringing the death toll to 45.
Cuban authorities said firefighters recovered from the rubble the body of a waitress, the last person missing believed to have been in the hotel at the time of the blast the morning of May 6.
“I have decreed official mourning for the victims of the accident at the Hotel Saratoga,” Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel said on Twitter in a message thanking the rescuers and sending condolences to the families who lost their loved ones. “It is the sentiment shared at the conclusion of the search for the disappeared.”
