Cuba Hotel Blast Toll Rises to 43—Most Hotel Workers

Cuban Red Cross workers walk away from the destroyed five-star Hotel Saratoga after searching through the rubble days after a deadly explosion in Old Havana, Cuba, on May 10, 2022. Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo

HAVANA—The elegant Hotel Saratoga was supposed to reopen in Havana on Tuesday after a two-year pandemic break. Instead, it was a day of mourning for the 43 people known to have died in an explosion that ripped the building apart.

Emergency workers continued to hunt through the ruins for other victims as experts began to consider the fate of 19th century building, a former warehouse that had been converted into hotel early in the last century.