At least one person has died and 125 have been injured, with dozens of firefighters reported missing since lighting struck one of the facility’s eight tanks on Friday night. A second tank caught fire on Saturday, causing several explosions at the facility, which plays a key role in Cuba’s electricity system. “The danger that we had announced happened and the fire of the second tank endangered the third,” said Mario Sabines, governor of the western province of Matanzas, where the facility is located. Sabines compared the situation to an “Olympic torch” going from one reservoir to another, turning each into a “cauldron” and now enveloping the area covering three reservoirs with flames and black smoke. Firefighters had sprayed water on the remaining tanks over the weekend to cool them and try to stop the fire from spreading. A fourth tank is threatened, but has not yet caught fire. The governments of Mexico and Venezuela have sent special teams to help put out the blaze, with water cannons, planes and helicopters battling the blaze from various directions, as military construction experts set up barriers to contain the oil spill. Local officials warned residents to use face masks or stay indoors, given the smoke enveloping the area that was visible from the capital Havana, more than 100 kilometers away. Officials have warned that the cloud contains sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances. The majority of the injured were treated for burns and smoke inhalation, while five of them remain in critical condition. Twenty-four remain in hospital. Over the weekend, authorities found the body of a firefighter as relatives of the missing gathered at a hotel to await news of their loved ones. Governor Sabines and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said it was impossible to search for the missing firefighters because of the high temperatures. The fire at the Matanzas supertanker base in the city of Matanzas prompted officials to evacuate more than 4,900 people, most of them from the nearby Dubrocq neighborhood. Jorge Piñon, director of the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Program at the University of Texas, said officials should inspect the walls of the non-burning tanks to ensure they were not affected. He also warned that the government should be careful before bringing the system back online once the fire is out. “If not, there will be another disaster,” he said. Piñon noted that the facility receives Cuban crude oil – which operates an oil pipeline that runs through the center of the country – to be transported via small tankers to the thermoelectric plants that generate electricity. It is also the unloading and transshipment center for imported crude oil, fuel oil and diesel, with Cuba producing only half of the fuel needed to sustain its economy. The blaze comes as Cuba struggles through a deep economic crisis and faces frequent power outages amid a hot summer, issues that helped spark unprecedented anti-government protests last year.
