The hotel was unoccupied except for staff preparing to reopen after being closed for the past couple of years.
A very beautiful building and I remember being impressed by it when I saw it. I spent an hour or two on the next block waiting to get into a restaurant on Valentine’s day. Turns out Cubans really like to go out to dinner on Valentine’s day.
Unfortunately the death toll has gone way up from the 8 the OP cited.