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A powerful explosion damaged a historic hotel in the Cuban capital on Friday, government media and witnesses reported.
According to the confirmed Cuban presidential Twitter account, the First Secretary of the Party in Havana, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, said that so far the deaths of four people had been confirmed.
The Cuban news agency ACN published photos showing severe damage to the Hotel Saratoga in Havana and clouds of dust billowing into the sky.
Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images Rescuers work after an explosion in the Saratoga Hotel in Havana, on May 6, 2022. A powerful explosion destroyed part of a hotel under repair in Cuba’s capital.
Search and rescue work is ongoing at the hotel, where people may still be trapped. The hotel was reportedly undergoing some sort of construction or renovations at the time of the blast.
A student told NBC News that the explosion woke him. “I was at home and heard a loud noise and I stood in my balcony and looked in that direction,” the student said in Spanish. “I thought it was coming from the store, but no, it came from Saratoga.”
“It was a large explosion. I felt it, I was asleep and it woke me,” he said.
Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images Rescuers work after an explosion in the Saratoga Hotel in Havana, on May 6, 2022. A powerful explosion destroyed part of a hotel under repair in Cuba’s capital.
It was not immediately clear how many people may have been injured, though the semiofficial website Cubadebate reported that nearly clinics were treating people who had been injured and that several ambulances had gone to the scene. It said a school next door had been evacuated.
The five-star, 96-room hotel in Old Havana has two bars, two restaurants and a rooftop pool, according to its website.
Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images Rescuers work after an explosion in the Saratoga Hotel in Havana, on May 6, 2022. A powerful explosion destroyed part of a hotel under repair in Cuba’s capital.
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