Body found after 800 people evacuated as smoke billows towards Havana following lightning strike at Matanzas supertanker base

Fire started by a lightning strike has engulfed an oil storage facility in the Cuban city of Matanzas, setting off explosions and injuring 121 people. Seventeen firefighters were missing and one body had been found, Cuban authorities said.

The blaze at the Matanzas supertanker base began during a thunderstorm on Friday night, the ministry of energy and mines tweeted. The government said later that it had asked for help from international experts in “friendly countries” with experience in the oil sector.

Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel says explosion at Hotel Saratoga appears to have been caused by a gas leak

At least 26 people have been killed and a further 74 have been treated in hospital after a powerful explosion tore the façade from a hotel in the Cuban capital, sending plumes of dust into the air and leaving rubble strewn across the street in the historic centre of Havana.

Speaking at the scene soon afterwards, the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, ruled out a bomb and said the blast at the Hotel Saratoga appeared to have been caused by a gas leak.

Courts sentenced 20 people in eastern Holguín province for sedition after last July’s anti-government protests

Cuban courts have handed out sentences of up to 20 years in prison to a group of people accused of taking part in protests that swept across the island in July.

The 20 defendants sentenced in the eastern province of Holguín were convicted after trials last month on charges of sedition. Hundreds of other people await verdicts following trials elsewhere.