Financial assistance to victims of Saratoga hotel explosion underway

Victims of the Saratoga hotel explosion in Cuba will receive their pensions as soon as possible, a local government agency has said.

In a report by Jamaica Gleaner, general director Virgina Marlen Garcia Reyes of the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) in Cuba said that granting the pensions for the victims and their families will consider certain exceptions since there are relatives of the deceased are not eligible for pensions.

“We intend to protect all the affected families without distinction due to the transcendence and painful repercussion of the accident,” Garcia Reyes said.

Those affected by the tragedy will receive their pensions in June “if the all the information are gathered quickly,” she added.

The INSS is working on reconstructing the labor file of the injured workers together with the Gaviota Tourism Group, which owns the five-star Hotel Saratoga that exploded on May 6.

The massive blast killed 46 people and almost a hundred more were injured from the incident. Authorities say a gas leak caused the explosion.

On Saturday, a vigil was held in honor of the 46 victims of the explosion.

The hotel was closed when the explosion happened. “Most of those killed or injured were Cuban staff or passers-by, including a Spanish tourist and a pregnant woman,” Reuters wrote in its report. Students from a nearby school were also injured in the blast, four of them were killed.

Hotel Saratoga is one of the historic skyscrapers in Havana located at the intersection of Paseo del Prado and Dragones in the Cuban capital, and right in front of the Fuente de la India. 

Cuban rescue workers spent days sifting through the huge piles of debris at the base of the Saratoga’s neo-classical style building, which is more than a century old.

The blast also decimated two adjoining upscale apartment buildings and caused lighter damage to 17 structures within a two-block radius.