Cuba: Solidarity on the Net After Plane Crash

Cuban plane crashes with 68 on board

Cuban plane crashes with 68 on board. Courtesy of Escambray.

At dusk Thursday November 4 the digital website of the Escambray [es] newspaper confirmed a plane had crashed near the town of Guasimal, located some 15 kilometers from Sancti Spiritus city, in central Cuba. Sixty-eight people died. Minutes later, Cubans using twitter.com started exchanging information on the deadly accident.

Journalist @humbct66 tweeted the first versions of the event, as well as the arrival of ambulances and paramedics to look for survivors. When they ruled out that possibility, messages of support for the victims’ relatives were spread throughout the web.

La solidaridad se hace presente. Mensajes de personalidades y personas comunes se conjugan en la red por #accidente en #SanctiSpíritus

Solidarity grows. Messages from important figures and common folks mingled in the web under #accidente in #SanctiSpíritus

From the hashtag #Cuba, the first encouraging messages from Cubans living abroad started arriving. @marianeli54 wrote:

Mis pensamientos están con mi pueblo querido, que hoy llora por el trágico accidente del vuelo ATR-72.

My thoughts are with my beloved people that cry today over the tragic accident of the Flight ATR-72

The spaces devoted to comments in the Cuban websites have turned into a source of firsthand details of the event. From Cubadebate [es], Osmel says he was at the site which he describes as “terrifying” the scenes. Meanwhile, Adrián [es], in the Juventud Rebelde [es] website asks for “a national mourning for the tragedy”.

So far the causes of the accident remain unknown, but the Cuban Institute of Civil Aeronautics organized immediately a commission of experts to investigate the accident, in which 40 Cubans and 28 citizens from 10 other countries, Argentina, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Italia, Japan and Venezuela, lost their lives.
El blog de Yohandry [es] and Destino Cuba [es] are also updating information on the tragic accident.

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