The fire has already been extinguished by firefighters, and “an immense layer of foam covers the place,” according to the official press
14ymedio, Havana, 15 June 2024 — “We are still waiting for the official reports of the disasters and accidents in the last five years,” complained a reader of Cubadebate this Friday, at the bottom of the announcement of the extinguishing of the fire in a fuel tank of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant. The accident at the Matanzas power plant is the most recent in a list, from the explosion in the Saratoga hotel to the destruction of the Supertanker Base, about whose causes the Cuban authorities have maintained a strict silence.
The official story is that the latest fire has already been extinguished by the firefighters of Matanzas, Havana and Mayabeque. They claim that it “originated in one of the fuel tanks,” but they do not say what could have unleashed it. Ernesto Torres, the head of the firefighters in the city, limited himself to saying,”We are investigating the cause. There was a repair process on the ladder of that tank, necessary to access its own operation, and this fire arose.”
For his part, Duanys Moreno, the young man who called to report the fire, is suspicious, because such “dangerous” areas suffer accidents so often. “Several fires have happened in that area and it’s not normal. That area must be strictly monitored and millions of dollars had to be invested in the security and maintenance of that infrastructure,” says the young aeronautics fan, referring to the report of a fire in the vicinity of the Supertanker Base that the authorities ruled out as dangerous.
The burned tank could store 10,000 cubic meters of Cuban crude oil, but it has not been clarified how much fuel was lost
“Those tanks must be prepared to automatically put out any fire from the first moment. That the entire Matanzas fire department, Varadero Airport staff and support from other municipalities had to show up in the area is a sign that those crude oil deposits don’t have the ability to solve an unforeseen event. The entire in