The Cuban government said Wednesday that 13 soldiers had died after an explosion a week earlier in an arms depot in the country's east.

Cuba's Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces said in a statement Wednesday that "it is officially declared that the 13 comrades are deceased."

The explosion, which the ministry said was likely the cause of a short circuit and power failure, happened on Tuesday last week in Melones, about 450 miles east of the capital Havana. It prompted the evacuation of more than 1,200 residents of the area.

Cuban military officials said that access to the site remains impossible due to the complex terrain, toxic gases and severe structural damage.

"It hurts deeply to confirm the death of officers, non-commissioners and soldiers who heroically faced the accident in a construction that stored war material from the military region of Holguín," Cuba's leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez said in a statement on social media. "They died heroically and as heroes they deserve our deepest tribute and companionship to their loved ones in the pain of loss.

The government named all 13 soldiers in a social media post Wednesday.

The 13 soldiers had initially been declared missing, the Reuters news agency reported, and officials previously said the blast was set off by a fire at a construction site.

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