Desperate search for survivors in Cuba hotel blast; 27 dead

By ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ
Associated Press

HAVANA (AP) — Relatives of the missing in Cuba’s capital are desperately searching for victims of an explosion at one of Havana’s most luxurious hotels that killed at least 27 people. They checked the morgue and hospitals, and if unsuccessful, they returned to the partially collapsed Hotel Saratoga. A natural gas leak was the apparent cause of Friday’s blast at the 96-room hotel. The 19th-century structure in the city’s Old Havana neighborhood did not have any guests at the time because it was undergoing renovations ahead of a planned Tuesday reopening. Dr. Julio Guerra Izquierdo, chief of hospital services at the Ministry of Health, says 81 people were injured.