: A third crude tank caught fire and collapsed at Cuba’s main oil terminal in Matanzas, the province’s governor said on Monday, as an oil spill spread flames from a second tank that caught fire two days earlier in the island’s biggest oil industry accident in decades.
Cuba had made progress fighting off the raging flames during the weekend after drawing on help from Mexico and Venezuela, but late on Sunday the fire began spreading from the second tank, which collapsed, said Mario Sabines, governor of the Matanzas province, about 60 miles from Havana. Cuban state-run television has covered the unfolding disaster live since Saturday and President Miguel Diaz-Canel has been a constant presence there, highlighting the economic and political importance of the situation.
The power grid depends more than 90% on local and imported fuel. Jorge Pinon, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean Energy and Environment said the fire threatened both.