Overview
- Company technicians and the local mayor cited a sudden, localized rock failure as the leading hypothesis, describing an abrupt roof collapse triggered by a large sandstone block.
- The Guardia Civil’s judicial police unit for persons is directing the court-led investigation, after the work area was reviewed in an official inspection the previous day.
- A surviving colleague raised the alarm at 16:58, rescuers recovered the first body at 19:45 and the second after 23:30, and a SAMU physician confirmed both deaths inside the mine.
- The Principado decreed two days of official mourning as authorities identified the victims as Óscar Díaz, 32, of Posada de Rengos, and Anilson Soares de Brito, 42, of Caboalles de Arriba, whose family previously lost a brother in a 2007 mining accident.
- Operator Tyc Narcea says it met or exceeded safety rules and cannot explain the collapse, while unions praised the Salvamento Minero brigade’s response and called for a full, rigorous inquiry distinct from the Cerredo case.