Powerful explosion at upscale hotel in Havana, Cuba, kills 8 people and injures dozens: "I thought it was an earthquake"

A powerful explosion apparently caused by a natural gas leak Friday killed eight people and injured at least 40 when it blew away outer walls from a five-star hotel in the heart of Cuba's capital.

No tourists were staying at the 96-room Hotel Saratoga because it was undergoing renovations, Havana Gov. Reinaldo García Zapata told the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

"It has not been a bomb or an attack. It is a tragic accident," President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who visited the site, said in a tweet. The blast happened as Cuba is struggling to revive its key tourism sector that was devastated by the coronavirus pandemic and is being negatively impacted by the war in Ukraine.