Guwahati: The media said that a large fire started by a lightning strike at an oil storage facility raged in Matanzas city on Saturday (local time), inflicting close to 80 injuries and leaving 17 firefighters missing.
Firefighters are still attempting to put out the incident at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, where it started during a thunderstorm on Friday night, according to the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, according to CBS News.
Later, the administration claimed that it had sought assistance from foreign specialists in “friendly countries” with knowledge of the oil industry.
Additionally, according to the official Cuban News Agency, a fire was started by lightning striking one tank, which later spread to a second tank.
Military helicopters soared overhead dousing the blaze with water in an effort to put out the fire that had overrun the neighbouring region. Thick black smoke plumes rose from the complex and extended 62 miles (more than 100 kilometres) to the west, toward Havana.
Roberto de la Torre, head of fire operations in Matanzas, said firefighters were spraying water on intact tanks to keep them cold in the hopes of stopping the fire from spreading but declining to provide further information about it.
The Matanzas provincial government’s facebook page said that 77 persons had been hurt and 17 more were missing. The 17 were “firefighters who were in the nearest region trying to prevent the spread,” according to the Republic’s Presidency.
Seven of the injured were transported to Havana’s renowned burn centre, Calixto Garcia Hospital.
The incident occurs as fuel shortages exist in Cuba. There was no early indication on how much oil had burnt or was in danger at the storage site, which includes eight enormous tanks that hold oil needed to run electricity producing units; however, the situation is still developing.
According to the authorities, the Dubrocq neighbourhood, which was closest to the fire, was evacuated. Gonzalez, however, said that some residents of the Versailles neighbourhood, which is a little farther from the tank farm, also made the decision to escape.
Matanzas, which has a population of roughly 140,000 and is situated on Matanzas Bay, was filled with ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks.
According to officials, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited the fire’s location early on Saturday.
In addition, local meteorologist Elier Pila displayed satellite photographs of the region, which showed a thick cloud of black smoke stretching from the fire’s origin westward and east to Havana. “That plume can be close to 150 kilometers long,” Pila wrote on his Twitter account.