Cuba hotel blast toll rises to 42 -- most hotel workers
ABC News
The elegant Hotel Saratoga was supposed to reopen Tuesday after a two-year pandemic break
HAVANA -- The elegant Hotel Saratoga was supposed to reopen Tuesday after a two-year pandemic break. Instead, it was a day of mourning for the 42 people known to have died in an explosion that ripped apart the building and of continued searching for yet more victims.
Emergency workers continued to hunt through the ruins missing as experts began to consider the fate of 19th century building, a former warehouse that had been converted into hotel early in the last century.
Roberto Enriquez, a spokesman for the military-owned Gaviota tourism company that operates the Saratpga, said experts' initial estimates are that 80 percent of the hotel was damaged by Friday's explosion, which hurled tons of concrete chunks into the busy streets just a block from the country's Capitol and seriously harmed neighboring structures.
He said that when rescue efforts finish, authorities would look more deeply into what to do with the structure.
