Cuba says ‘impossible’ to identify bone remains found after fire

the authorities of Cuba concluded this Wednesday, 17th, that it is “impossible to absolutely identify” the identity of the bone remains found in the area of ​​the industrial fire occurred at a fuel depot in slaughter, in the west of the island. In a press conference, Jorge González Pérez, president of the Cuban Society of Legal Medicine, pointed out that – despite the fact that it is not possible to carry out a DNA test due to the degree of calcination – it can be concluded that the fragments correspond to the 14 missing persons. González Pérez made his statement shortly after meeting with relatives and friends of the disappeared – whose names and ages were declined by the coroner. In the area of ​​the fire, considered the biggest industrial disaster in the history of the country, 754 fragments were found in “14 groups of bone remains”, according to González Pérez. The found remains were exposed to temperatures that reached 2,000 degrees Celsius, according to this expert. To find them, according to the report of events, it was necessary to penetrate a layer of solid fuel that was formed during the fire, which reached four tanks with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters each.

Also according to González Pérez, it is not possible to know whether each of the 14 groups of bone remains belongs to each of the 14 disappeared separately. To reach these conclusions, Cuba consulted the International Committee of the Red Cross, the president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences, Ángel Carracedo, and experts from several countries on the continent and in Europe, whose names were not revealed. The specialist also did not clarify whether there was contact with foreign universities with areas of research specializing in this type of DNA recognition in burned fragments.

In this sense, the forensic expert pointed out that in the country “we have all the technology for any type of identification”, but not for events “of these characteristics”. The tragedy has a provisional balance of two dead and 132 injured, of which 17 remain hospitalized. The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, declared on Wednesday two days of official mourning starting this Thursday, 18, in honor of the people who died in the serious fire. The Cuban flag will remain hoisted at half-mast as a sign of mourning until midnight on Friday, the 19th, the day on which the funeral ceremonies will take place. On that day, there will also be a tribute at the Matanzas Fire Museum.

*With information from EFE