Three employees who were at the Hotel Saratoga in Havana at the time of a strong explosion that destroyed much of the building and killed at least 42 people are still missing, tourism ministry officials said Tuesday.
Search teams are trying to find two waitresses and a cook who worked at the five-star hotel and are believed to be trapped in the building’s ruins, officials said at a news conference reported by Prensa Latina.
Hotel Saratoga was preparing to reopen to international tourism after two years of being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty-three of the 51 workers believed to have been on site at the time of the blast were killed. Another three remain hospitalized.
On Tuesday, the official death toll rose to 42. Seventeen people remained hospitalized, the Ministry of Public Health said. Four adults and two children are in critical condition.
The rescue work continues at the disaster scene but has progressed slowly because areas such as the basement have collapsed, Fire Department officials said.
The powerful explosion Friday morning — allegedly caused by a gas leak — brought down walls, beams and the facade of several building floors. On Tuesday, search and rescue teams were focused on what remains of the kitchen and the employees’ dining room, said Col. Luis Carlos Guzmán, the Fire Department’s chief.
Among the disappeared is Shadys Cristina Cobas Mesa, a Saratoga Hotel waitress who was there on Friday, state news outlet Cubadebate reported. On Tuesday, her relatives were gathered in the Parque de la Fraternidad, just a few meters away from what’s left of the Saratoga Hotel, waiting for some news and hoping “that she is alive,” Cobas’ mother said.
———
