Firefighters control the flames in one of the burning fuel tanks in Cuba

Cuban emergency teams have begun to put out the flames of a large fire that broke out on Friday in fuel depots in Matanzas, in the north of the island.

Local authorities announced this Sunday that firefighters had contained the fire in one of the three affected tanks, which has left one dead, more than 120 injured and 16 missing.

The first secretary of the Communist Party in Matanzas, Susely Morfa, has specified, however, that a second tank was still "in combustion" and the third was being cooled with water "in order to maintain an adequate temperature that prevents combustion."

The members of the Fire Department and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) are working, with the support of Mexican and Venezuelan technicians and specialists who arrived in Cuba on Saturday night, at the scene of the incident to speed up the pumping of seawater , which is transferred through a pipe to the deposit area.

“We express deep gratitude to the governments of Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua, Argentina and Chile, which have promptly offered solidary material aid in the face of this complex situation.

We also appreciate the offer of technical advice from the United States,” said the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, through social networks.

The fire started on Friday afternoon after lightning struck one of the warehouses at the super tanker base located on the outskirts of Matanzas, 100 kilometers east of Havana, at 7:00 p.m.

Throughout Saturday Saturday the fire spread to a second warehouse.

And while the emergency teams are working to put out the fire, the experts from the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment (Citma) are concentrating on analyzing the environmental impact of the accident and the load of pollutants emitted by the fuel, reports Efe.

The large cloud of smoke that formed in the surroundings of the affected area spread through the municipalities located to the north of the western provinces near Matanzas, such as Mayabeque, Artemisa, La Habana and Pinar del Río.

That is, within a radius of more than 100 kilometers.

However, the Minister of Public Health of Cuba, José Ángel Portal Miranda, declared to the state media that "no increase in respiratory ailments or other symptoms caused by contamination has been detected."

Medical consultations maintain, in any case, a surveillance system.

Matanzas authorities indicated that the number of evacuees exceeds 4,000 people.

According to the Cuban Petroleum Union (Cupet), the state oil company, the first deposit "contained some 26,000 cubic meters of national crude oil, about 50% of its maximum capacity," when it was struck by lightning.

The second tank had 52,000 cubic meters of fuel oil.

"Apparently there was a failure in the lightning rod system, which could not withstand the energy of the electrical discharge," said the official Granma newspaper.

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