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A fire was reported this Friday at the old "José Mercerón" cement factory, located on the Punta Gorda road, in the Altamira neighborhood, Santiago de Cuba, as informed by the Operations and Relief Officer at MINSAP, Aris Arias Batalla, on his Facebook account.
According to preliminary information, the incident was caused by a fuel spill. Several fire crews from the area intervened to control the flames until they were completely extinguished.
"According to preliminary information, the incident was caused by a fuel spill and was contained by the intervention of several fire department units from the area. Efforts are still underway to cool down the affected zone," clarified Arias Batalla.
At the time of the report, emergency teams were still engaged in general cooling efforts in the affected area. No injuries or fatalities were reported.
The expert indicated that the factory is unusable and that work was being carried out with oxy-cutting equipment. A spill of old (unsuitable) fuel, upon contact with sparks, caused the fire.
This is not the first fire that the facility has experienced. In March 2025, the same factory was involved in a similar incident when remnants of abandoned diesel fuel tanks caught fire, producing a massive column of smoke visible from various points in the city.
On that occasion, no injuries were reported either, as the area was deserted.
The incident this Friday is part of a troubling wave of fires that has struck Santiago de Cuba in the early months of 2026, with at least six significant incidents reported between February and April.
Among the most severe cases is the fire at the Provincial Hospital Saturnino Lora in April, which forced the evacuation of 12 patients from intensive and intermediate care following the explosion of an air conditioning compressor.
On April 6, a fire left five children homeless after destroying the home of two families on Gallo Street. And on May 2, another incident in the Mariana de la Torre neighborhood left an elderly woman with burns.
Experts attribute the rise in fires to precarious construction, the use of firewood and alternative fuels for cooking due to the energy crisis, and failures in electrical equipment.
The crisis is exacerbated by the national electricity deficit, which reached between 1,630 and 1,945 MW in April 2026, affecting 55% of the Cuban territory and halting water pumps, delaying the response of fire departments to each emergency.
The factory "José Mercerón Allen" has more than seven decades of history: it was founded in 1953 as "Cementos Nacionales SA" with the commercial brand Titán, began its production in 1955, and was nationalized on September 30, 1960. It is currently in a state of partial deterioration, and there is a government project to build a new cement plant in Santiago de Cuba to replace it.
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