Julen Roselló García, a two-year-old Spanish boy, fell 70 m (230 ft) into a narrow shaft near
Totalán in
Málaga, on January 13, 2019. The shaft, illegally excavated, was 110 m (360 ft) deep and had a diameter of 25 cm (9.8 in).
[1][2] To carry out a rescue, it was necessary to drill a parallel conduit of a greater diameter, in an operation in which more than 300 people intervened, plus numerous heavy machinery.
[3] The operation received international media coverage.
[4][5][6] After several setbacks during drilling, on 26 January at 1:25 a.m., Roselló's body was found between two layers of earth.
Disappearance[edit]
Roselló disappeared on January 13, 2019 playing while his parents, José and Vicky, were having a picnic on their cousin's boyfriend's property in Totalán, Spain. His mother was in the midst of calling the burger restaurant where she worked to inform them she wouldn't be going in that day. His father was preparing food and collecting wood when Roselló ran off. He fell into a 107 metre deep shaft with a diameter of 25 to 30 cm. The shaft had been drilled in December 2018 by an entrepreneur searching for ground water, without the permission of the authorities. It was not secured afterwards,
[7] though the owner said he had covered the hole with rocks. Roselló's father heard his son cry and when he reached down not realizing the depth of the hole, sand fell and he no longer heard his son's cry.
[8][9][10] Hikers closeby heard the parent's screams and quickly called for help.
At 1:57 p.m. on January 13, through a call to the emergency center in Málaga, a woman warned that a young child had fallen through a small hole, 25 cm (9.8 in) in diameter.
[11] The ground of the well where Roselló fell is very unstable and experts determined that any operation had to be done with great care to avoid landslides.
[12] A device and a plan to rescue Roselló was set in motion, moving a machine, drilling piles of 75 tons, together with other heavy machinery, to the site to reduce the terrain to excavate a parallel well and, once the level where the minor was believed to be, to excavate a horizontal tunnel by miners of the Central Salvage Brigade Mining of
Asturias, specialists in underground rescues. It was necessary to build a special capsule so that the miners could move to the place.
[13][14]
Attempted rescue[edit]
The works of preparation to initiate the rescue were carried out without any inconvenience, but later a series of setbacks arose that extended the work, besides the anguish of relatives and rescuers.
[15]
Initial attempts to reach Roselló were unsuccessful due to the shaft being blocked at a depth of 71 m (233 ft). This was discovered when a camera was lowered into the shaft. Rescuers only managed to remove about 30 cm (12 in) of rubble before deciding to pursue alternative rescue plans.
[16] Construction of the vertical shaft took several days due to the rocky nature of the earth. On January 24, 2019, the vertical shaft was completed and rescuers started excavating the horizontal gallery.
[17]
Explosives were used as a last resort as rescuers could not break through the rocks using conventional tools.
[18] First, the excavation of the parallel tunnel was slower than had been thought at the beginning, since the terrain turned out to be harder than expected and the use of the machines had to be managed in order not to damage them.
[19] With the tunnel already built, the second difficulty arose with the jacketing.
[20]
The pipes that were planned to be introduced inside the well, to ensure this, did not fit, due to discontinuities in the walls of the gallery. This circumstance forced the rescue teams to drill the tunnel again to widen it. The Spanish authorities received offers from dozens of international companies to collaborate in the search, including the Swedish geolocation firm Stockholm Precision Tools AB, which participated in
the rescue of the 33 miners trapped for 69 days in the north of Chile in 2010.
[21]
The rescue operation was carried out in a few days, an engineering task that, usually, would be extended for months. The dimensions of the work were reflected in some figures offered by the government delegate in Andalusia, when he assured that more than 40,000 tons of dirt had been moved and a height equivalent to that of the
Giralda in Seville was being excavated. The inventor of the rescue capsule of the Chilean miners offered his help in this rescue.
[22]
The complexity of the rescue made it a study in universities, in geology class.
[23]
Recovery[edit]
On January 26 at 01.25 am local time, rescuers located his body in the hole.
[24] Autopsy revealed that he suffered a "severe head trauma" from the 71-metre fall and presumably died instantly.
[25]
Search and rescue team[edit]
The Mining Rescue Brigade, which traveled from Asturias, made available to the rescue eight of its best elite miners. The elite brigade has received several awards and distinctions for their work, such as the Gold Medal for Merit in Work (1972), the Silver Medal of the Principality of Asturias (1990) and Silver Medal of the Red Cross (2005).
[26]
Uncertainties[edit]
One of the biggest questions about the rescue in the well of Totalán is the origin of the ground plug that hindered access to Roselló.
[27] Experts understand that this ground plug comes from the sides of the well and was dragged by the body of Roselló during its fall, so it could be a landslide. Another theory is that, as it is an abandoned well, it is normal for the lateral walls to fall. Specialists say that it is understandable that the humidity, due to the effects of the rain, will wear away the walls and lose consistency, causing the sand or the surrounding earth to detach inside the pit.
[27]
Nobody could explain, of the 300 people who worked in the rescue of Roselló, how the plug of dirt was so compact.
[28] A series of questions arose that the experts tried to answer. They say that it is unlikely that the plug was formed by the dirt dragged by the fall of Roselló, given that the type of perforation is supposed to be clean, with no remains of sand or dirt. Another question is how quickly the plug has been compacted, assuring the experts that if it were dry sand, as it seemed to be, it would have taken weeks to form, and in this case it did in the first 24 hours. Even so, one of the certainties that exist is that from where the plug is to the bottom of the well there is a distance of 39 m (128 ft).
[28]
Legal consequences[edit]
Independently of the rescue in the interior of the well, the Civil Guard began an investigation to reconstruct the facts as it happens in any other disappearance. A court in Málaga opened proceedings in the courtroom known as the Julen Case.
[30] The Ninth Court of Instruction of Málaga opened proceedings to know the exact circumstances in which Roselló fell on the well. The proceedings were initiated after an attestation made by the Civil Guard after taking the parents' declaration of the minor, the owner of the land and the person who dug the well in mid-December of the previous year.
[31]
Media treatment[edit]
The accident and subsequent recovery of Roselló received extensive media coverage by Spanish and foreign media. Referring to coverage on television networks, the event was addressed in both news programs and morning and afternoon magazines that recorded audience records.
[32] El programa de Ana Rosa de
Telecinco expanded its regular schedule and made special programs.
[33] Also
Sálvame, another Spanish program, covered the events of the final hours of the rescue.
[34]
Media coverage generated various criticisms from other journalists who described it as a "media circus" and in social networks, accusing various media outlets of encouraging morbidity and sensationalism.
[35][36] The Andalusian Audiovisual Council announced that it would study the media coverage of the case due to a possible violation of the rights of the minor's relatives.
[37]
On 24 January, the
Civil Guard, through its official
Twitter account, was forced to deny a hoax that went viral and circulated through social networks, especially
WhatsApp, claiming that there was an alternative theory about what happened that the Civil Guard would be investigating and that it had forbidden journalists to bring it to light, which the Civil Guard denied.
[38]
Timeline[edit]
- On Sunday, 13 January, 2019, Julen Roselló García, a 2-year-old boy, was spending the day with his family when, around 2:00 p.m., he fell into a well located on a private farm. A group of walkers heard the screams that came from family members and called the emergency team immediately.[39]
- On 14 January, a camera goes down to 73 meters deep and locates a bag of sweets and a plastic cup inside the well, which belong to Roselló. Rescue teams can not get down any more by running into a hard dirt plug, assuming Roselló is under that plug.[40]
- On 15 January, a group of technicians and specialists was called, opting for the opening of a lateral and a horizontal tunnel between 50 to 80 m (160 to 260 ft), as the best option to reach Roselló. The preparatory works begin.[41]
- On 16 January, it is confirmed by DNA tests that hair belonging to Roselló has been found inside the well. It transpires that the works for the well did not have permission from the Council of Andalucía and Roselló's father appears before the media to say that he and his wife keep hope alive.[42]
- On 17 January, the rescue teams decided to suspend the construction of a horizontal tunnel due to landslides and hardness of the terrain. The level of the hill was reduced by 15 m (49 ft) and the construction of two vertical tunnels was then decided.[43]
- On 18 January, the heavy machinery drilled to open a vertical tunnel parallel to the well and they run into a slate rock mass at 18 meters depth, which again complicates the rescue work.[44]
- On 23 January, the rescue team reduces the diameter of the pipe intended for vertical drilling.[2]
- On 25 January, the miners advance in the final search in the well. The rescue team excavates almost 3 m (9.8 ft) of the 3.8 m (12 ft) that they had to drill to reach the bottom and have to make up to four microblasts to break hard rock (quartzite).[2]
- On January 26 at 1:25 a.m., the rescue teams accessed the point of the well where Roselló was sought and located the body of the boy between two layers of dirt.[45] A judicial commission was activated.[46]
