According to the Cuban News Agency (ACN), firefighters and members of the Red Cross worked on early Saturday without interruption but they had to retreat due to the danger of a collapse and the large volume of soot concentrated on a wall.

Thermoelectric Power Plant General Director Misbel Palmero informed that equipment used after the explosion at the Saratoga hotel in Havana is expected to arrive soon in order to create other access routes to remove the mountain of soot.

“It is a hammer with the necessary force to break the outside wall, and then access and remove material through that route. The equipment is already on the move and should arrive in an estimated four or five hours,” Palmero said.

The accident occurred on Friday while four workers were cleaning the lower part of the chimney, in the area known as the ashtray, where they extracted soot and carried out other cleaning tasks when the partition, a seven-meter-tall wall, collapsed.

The workers belong to the Company Specialized in Repair and Maintenance of Chimneys and Work at Heights, attached to the Ministry of Construction.

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