(Havana) The fire that raged for a week in early August in an oil depot in western Cuba killed 16 firefighters, 14 of whom are unidentifiable, said a forensic specialist.
Posted yesterday at 11:19 p.m.
Two firefighters died in the blaze and fourteen others were missing. Jorge Gonzalez Perez, president of the Cuban Society of Forensic Medicine, confirmed that those missing died at the scene of the disaster.
“Since the remains found were subjected to high temperatures for a long time, it is not possible to perform DNA extraction,” Gonzalez Perez told a press conference.
The funeral will be celebrated on Friday, announced the Cuban presidency, which also decreed two days of national mourning.
The fire, caused by lightning, broke out on August 5 in the oil depot of Matanzas, the largest in Cuba, 100 km east of Havana. Four tanks that can contain up to 52 million liters of crude oil or fuel oil burned, out of the eight in the deposit.