Julen Roselló García, a two-year-old Andalusian boy, fell 109 m (358 ft) into a narrow shaft near Totalán in the province of Málaga, on January 13, 2019.
[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.
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.
At 1:57 pm 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.
[12] A device and a plan to rescue him 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 shaft and, once the level where he was believed to be, to excavate a horizontal tunnel by miners of the Central Salvage Brigade Mining of Asturias, specialists in underground rescues.
[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.
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.
[citation needed] 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.
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] The High Court of Justice of Andalusia decided to open a lawsuit after a report of the Civil Guard, investigating the circumstances which led to the accident.
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.