As of Monday morning, 125 people had been injured, 17 firefighters were missing and one responding officer was dead. At least 24 people remained hospitalizedfive of them in critical condition, officials said.
The fire broke out around 7pm on Friday when lightning struck one of the crude oil storage tanks at a supertanker base in northwestern Cuba, about 55 miles east of Havana. The flames quickly spread to a second tank, causing multiple explosions. It also prompted the evacuation of nearly 5,000 people from the neighboring region, Matanzas Governor Mario Sabines Lorenzo said, according to state media.
But Sunday brought worsening conditions as strong winds fanned the flames, according to Cuba Ministry of Energy and Mines. As night fell over the island, the second tank that caught fire exploded and collapsed, spewing burning oil and flames into the surrounding vegetation and setting a third tank on fire. The blaze injured a reporter and two workers from Union Oil of Cuba, the country’s largest oil company, according to the agency.
A third tank is now “under risk” to be burned by the fire, Sabines Lorenzo told – clarifying that he had not collapsed, as previous reports had indicated.
Firefighters were trying to block the fire’s path early Monday, he added. Meanwhile, residents, workers and health providers have been evacuated from the area.
Footage on social media showed what appeared to be a fire erupting in the sky on Sunday. People shouted “Ay, Dios mío!” – or “Oh, my God!” – as they retreated from theirs balconies. Some ran inside panic as a massive fireball turned the sky orange and emitted heat like an oven. Night had suddenly turned into day, some said as they recorded.
“At the moment the situation is very complex at the #Matanzas Supertanker base. The explosions keep happening. The site cannot be accessed”, Ministry of Energy and Mines posted on Twitter EARLY Monday.
Heavy black smoke had been seen billowing from the facility since late Friday in a plume that stretched about 93 miles west of Havana and over the sea, local weatherman Elier Pila Fariñas said on Twitter. Electrical storms formed over the weekend increased the risk of toxic showers, Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment warned. Government agency also suggested the use of masks to prevent inhalation of hazardous particles.
The situation prompted the island’s government to seek help from what it called “friendly countries” with experience in the oil sector. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked Venezuela, Mexico, Russia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Chile on Saturday for OFFERS. That day, crews from Mexico AND Venezuela arrived to join firefighting operations.
The United States also offered “technical guidance,” Díaz-Canel said — though it’s unclear whether Cuba has accepted the help. Relations between the United States and Cuba have been strained since the late 1950s, when Fidel Castro created a communist state allied with the Soviets. Since then, economic and trade sanctions have become the norm – although the severity of restrictions has varied with presidential administrations. Last year brought another round of sanctions after the Cuban government violently suppressed a wave of peaceful protests – which were sparked by worsening living conditions on the island, power outages and shortages of food and medicine.
However, the US embassy in Cuba noted I tweet that “US law authorizes US entities and organizations to provide assistance and disaster response in Cuba”.
But as of early Monday, crews were still struggling to control the blaze – a dire situation in a country already dealing with regular, several-hour power outages. The combination of broken equipment, reliance on Venezuelan oil and lack of maintenance had already destroyed Cuba’s power grid, the Miami Herald reported. On Sunday the demand for electricity was much more than the country’s capacity, according to the president bureau.
It’s still unclear how much oil was lost in the fire – but for many, the scene it produced was nothing short of incredible.
“It looks like a battlefield. I don’t even believe what my eyes are seeing,” said a resident of Matanzas to the American reporter Mario J. Penton.
