Havana hotel blast death toll rises to 26 as search continues amid rubble

The official cause of the Havana hotel blast is still under investigation, but a large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker from the hotel's rubble early Saturday.

Relatives of the missing in Cuba‘s capital desperately searched Saturday for victims of an explosion at Hotel Saratoga, one of Havana‘s most luxurious hotels, that killed at least 26 people.

They checked the morgue, hospitals and if unsuccessful, they returned to the partially collapsed Hotel Saratoga, where rescuers used dogs to hunt for survivors.

A natural gas leak was the apparent cause of Friday’s blast at the 96-room hotel.

The 19th-century structure in the Old Havana neighborhood did not have any guests at the time because it was undergoing renovations ahead of a planned Tuesday reopening after being closed for two years during the pandemic.

Havana city officials raised the death toll to 26 on Saturday, according to the official Cubadebate news site. The dead included four children and a pregnant woman. Spain’s President Pedro Sanchez said via Twitter that a Spanish tourist was among the dead and that another Spaniard was seriously injured.

Cuban authorities confirmed the tourist’s death and said her partner was injured. They were not staying at the hotel. Tourism Minister Dalila Gonzalez said a Cuban-American tourist was also injured.

Representatives of Grupo de Turismo Gaviota SA, which owns the hotel, said during a news conference Saturday that 51 workers had been inside the hotel at the time, as well as two people working on renovations. Of those, 11 were killed, 13 remained missing and six were hospitalized.

Gonzalez said the cause of the blast was still under investigation, but a large crane hoisted a charred gas tanker from the hotel’s rubble early Saturday.