MATANZAS, Cuba, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Hundreds of people toiled under the hot sun on Friday to undertake arduous recovery efforts following a fire three weeks ago at an oil terminal in the Cuban city of Matanzas, located 100 kilometers east of Havana.
There is an incessant hustle and bustle as heavy machinery and trucks run back and forth at the Supertanks Base, where lightning struck an oil storage tank holding 26,000 cubic meters of fuel on Aug. 5, igniting flames that spread to three other tanks.
The fire, which is considered the largest ever in Cuba, claimed the lives of 16 firefighters and left another 146 people with injuries.
The director of the Fuel Marketing Company, Rigel Rodriguez, said several phases of recovery were being worked on at the same time, including the demolition of damaged structures, which led to the removal of some 700 tons of debris.
Tank 51, the second tank to catch fire and collapse, is among the structures to be demolished, while experts assess the state of its foundations.
"If we verify that the structure of the fuel tank has not been damaged, the first tank would be built there," the Presidency of the Republic said in a press release.
Experts from the Ministry of Energy and Mines said the country has the resources needed to rebuild the tanks, with certain modifications to avoid a repeat of the incident. Demolishing all four tanks is expected to take 90 days.
Work is also being done to reactivate the technological system to resume operations at the terminal.
Due to the damage to the ground, specialists from the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment are working to collect the spilled crude oil.
The Supertanks Base, where four other 50,000-cubic-meter storage tanks remain intact, is the main fuel depot for Cuba's thermoelectric plants, with the fuel transferred via deep draft vessels.
While the losses have not yet been fully calculated, they are assumed to be considerable due to the spill or destruction of thousands of cubic meters of crude oil and fuel.
The accident took place at a time when the Caribbean country is struggling to generate electricity due to a lack of fuel, breakdowns at generation plants and scheduled maintenance at some plants.
Shortfalls in electricity have forced the government to schedule blackouts throughout the country, including Havana, the country's capital and main urban center.
The incident in Matanzas occurred just three months after the accidental explosion of a tanker truck filled with liquefied gas outside the historic Hotel Saratoga in Havana, which left 47 people dead and almost a hundred injured. ■
