Cuba has received offers of assistance from many countries after it asked for help in dealing with a huge fire at an oil depot sparked by lightning that triggered explosions in which at least one person was killed, 121 were injured and 17 are still missing.

Some 1,900 people were evacuated from the disaster area, located in the suburb of Mantanzas, a town of 140,000 inhabitants 100 kilometers east of Havana, from where the huge column of black smoke that darkened the sky could be seen.

Five people in critical condition

“A body was found at the accident site,” Matanzas health director Luis Armando Wong said at a press conference.

Five injured are in critical condition, three in very serious condition and 28 seriously injured, according to a latest report communicated on the Twitter account of the presidency. Among the injured is the Minister of Energy, Livan Arronte.

The 17 missing people are firefighters “who were in the area closest to the fire” when the explosion occurred.

International aid

The fire broke out Friday night when lightning struck one of the oil depot’s tanks. Early in the morning, the fire spread to a second tank.

Given the difficult control of the fire that “could take time,” according to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba “requested the help and advice of friendly countries with experience in the oil sector.”

The answers were immediate and the Cuban president expressed on Twitter his “profound gratitude to the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Chile, who promptly provided solidary material aid in the face of this complex situation.”

“We are also grateful for the offer of technical assistance from the United States,” he added. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio said that the US proposal “is already in the hands of specialists for proper coordination.”

The US Embassy in Havana had previously said it was “in contact” with Cuban officials, saying that despite the ongoing sanctions regime against the single ruling party, “US law allows US entities and organizations United States provide aid and response to disasters in Cuba.”

Helicopters were working to fight the fire on Saturday, with water hoses brought in by crane.

A “shock wave”

Ginelva Hernández, 33, said she, her husband and their three children were sleeping when they were woken up by a violent explosion. “We jumped out of bed. When we went outside, the sky was yellow,” she told AFP. At that time, “people’s fear was out of control.”

Laura Martínez, a resident of the disaster area, told AFP that “she felt the explosion, like a shock wave.”

Hearing a first explosion, Yuney Hernández, 32, and her children fled from their house located two kilometers from the deposit. They returned a few hours later and then heard more explosions in the early hours of the morning and sounds “like pieces of the tank falling”.

According to Asbel Leal, director of trade and supply for the Cuban Petroleum Union (Cupet), the first tank “contained approximately 26,000 cubic meters of domestic crude, or approximately 50% of its maximum capacity” at the time of the disaster. The second tank contained 52,000 cubic meters of fuel oil. Cuba has never faced a fire of “the magnitude of today’s,” he said.

“Lightning Rod System Failure”

According to the official newspaper grandmother“There was a fault in the lightning rod system that could not withstand the power of the electrical discharge.”

The field supplies the Antonio Guiteras power plant, the largest in Cuba, but pumping to the plant has not stopped, Granma said.

This fire occurs when the island faces the obsolescence of the eight thermoelectric plants to meet the increased demand for electricity due to the summer heat.

The authorities must make rotating cuts of up to 12 hours a day in certain regions of the country, which sparked the anger of the exasperated neighbors who have organized twenty demonstrations.