This content was published on August 07, 2022 – 21:47 August 07, 2022 – 21:47
Juan Carlos Espinosa
Matanzas (Cuba), 7 August (EFE).- When Amed Yoel, 36, went out into the street at dawn on Saturday and looked up at the sky, he thought it was daytime because the big fire in two oil tanks was emitting light Fuel from the industrial area of Matanzas (West Cuba), only 2.5 kilometers away.
At that moment, a second explosion shook the neighborhood of José Luis Dubrocq, the closest of the affected tanks. “It was like an earthquake, people screamed after running towards the street,” says Lázara González, 56, of Efe.
It was 5:00 a.m. (9:00 GMT) in this modest neighborhood of winding streets when its residents heard the explosion of the second of eight fuel tanks — with a capacity of up to 50,000 cubic meters, some 15 Olympic-size swimming pools — after a first lightning fire in the morning.
“That surprised us, we were so scared! We turn everything off, close and go down to the small park. My grandson picked us up and took us to Cumbre (a quarter from Matanzas),” says Prima Felicia Alfonso, an elderly woman with nervous problems who has not allowed her to eat for two days.
By midnight they had already suffered two blasts – in the first tank – and by daybreak many had already left in private cars and motorbikes for a relative’s house outside the neighborhood.
But even after the shock and confusion of the previous day, all residents of the neighborhood interviewed with Efe agree that the tension was at its peak at that moment.
The second tank exploded just as the last remaining residents of the neighborhood boarded the guaguas (buses) sent by the government to take them to Matanzas, the seat of the municipality.
“YOU COULD FEEL THE HEAT”
It was then that Amed Yoel noticed that dawn had turned into day and panic broke out.
“We didn’t know if the candle would reach us. You could feel the heat and only later did we see what happened on social media,” says Christian, a 16-year-old who works as a kitchen hand.
In total, more than 4,000 people have been evacuated from the regions around the fire – like González and Yoel – so far.
Almost two days later, the thick column of black smoke is perfectly visible, taking up a good portion of the sky from this area. The cloud can be seen in Havana, more than 100 kilometers away.
The smell of sulfur was still strong Sunday lunchtime, but that didn’t stop many from returning even for a moment to “look at” their belongings.
“I came for clothes, I ran away with what I was wearing,” Raúl Ramírez, 70, tells Efe, showing a plastic bag with only a few clothes.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me in the 40 years I’ve lived here,” adds the neighbor, who has been staying in a hostel provided by the city government in the Versalles district for the past few hours.
A similar case to González, who is waiting for the clothes to dry on the clothesline in his one-story house overlooking the road that leads to the highway to Varadero, one of Cuba’s main tourist destinations.
As of Sunday morning, the fire’s tally was one firefighter dead, another 16 missing and 122 injured, including five seriously and three seriously injured.
Rescue teams from Mexico and Venezuela arrived on the island on Saturday evening to help the island’s government extinguish the flames.
While emergency responders are still at the scene, residents of the neighborhood are enjoying moments of relative calm after a scare that hasn’t quite ended. EFE
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