14ymedio, Havana, 11 May 2022 — Three people have been injured by the explosion caused by a gas leak this morning in Old Havana. According to this newspaper, there is damage to doors and windows and inside the house.
The residents of the building, who are waiting two blocks away from the accident, commented that one of the injured is a child who is in intensive care, and that another of the survivors was removed from the rubble.
Yamila Velázquez Fernández, delegate of the 48th constituency of the Jesús María Popular Council, rightly declared to the Cuban News Agency that of those injured, an “adult over 50 years of age with 90% burns and life-threatening ” and an “11-year-old boy with 75% burns on his body.”
In the morning hours, a doctor accompanied by another official entered the building, although they did not allow people to walk nearby. The residents of the building wait two blocks away from the incident, while a strong operation guarded the area.
Colonel Luis Carlos Guzmán, head of the Cuban Fire Department, has disassociated this explosion from the one that occurred last Friday at the Saratoga Hotel and which has left 43 dead, two missing and almost a hundred injured to date.
“We must clarify that it has nothing to do with what happened in the Saratoga. Later we will offer more information about the event,” he told the News Magazine Buenos Días, on Cuban Television.
The official journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso reported on his social networks that the mayor of Old Havana attributed the explosion to negligence, when its residents left the gas tap open. The firefighters had, according to this version, to turn off the key when they arrived at the building.
“As a result of the explosion at 954 San Nicolás at the corner of Corrales, three people were injured. One of them is already discharged, a child is hospitalized in Juan Manuel Márquez and his father in Calixto García,” he said.
The incident occurred around 5:00 am and material losses were reported in at least three apartments.
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