The Cuban government announced on Friday that it had extinguished a week-long fire at an oil depot in western Cuba that left two people dead, 14 missing and 132 injured.
“At 7 a.m., the fire was declared extinguished,” the Cuban president tweeted. The President added that about sixty forensic experts went to the disaster area, trying to find the bodies of the missing.
A fire caused by a lightning strike broke out on August 5 at the Matanzas, the largest oil depot in Cuba, located 100 kilometers east of Havana.
Four tanks, which can hold up to 52 million liters of crude oil or fuel oil, were burned out of eight on site.
The blaze killed two firefighters and injured 132 people, 23 of whom were still hospitalized on Friday. Four of the wounded are in critical condition.
The loss of millions of liters of primary fuel to power the country’s power plants is expected to exacerbate the difficult electricity situation on the island.
