TOTALAN, Spain:Spain grieved yesterday after a toddler who fell down a well was found dead ina tragic end to an intense 13-day rescue operation fraught with danger andsetbacks. Hundreds of engineers, police and miners had been workinground-the-clock under the media glare to try to reach two-year-old JulenRosello, who plunged down a narrow, illegal well on January 13 while hisparents prepared lunch nearby in Totalan, a southern town near Malaga.
"Unfortunatelyat 1:25 am (0225 GMT) the rescue team reached the spot where they were lookingfor Julen and found the lifeless body of the little one," the centralgovernment's representative in the southern region of Andalusia, AlfonsoRodriguez Gomez de Celis, wrote on Twitter. "Not another time, no,"shouted his father Jose when he is believed to have heard the news, an AFPphotographer witnessed. Julen's parents lost another child, Oliver, aged three,in 2017. The child had cardiac problems.
'It wasn'tpossible'
Julen made a"free fall" down to a depth of 71 m when he hit a layer of earth,Gomez de Celis later told reporters, adding that an investigation was underwayto determine any "potential liabilities" in the two-year-old's death.A hearse arrived at the mountain site shortly after the news broke to take hisbody to a funeral home, with psychologists at the side of Julen's parents."All of Spain feels the infinite sadness of Julen's family. We havefollowed closely every step to reach him," Prime Minister Pedro Sanchezwrote on Twitter, where the news was a trending topic.
In a tweet,Spain's King Felipe VI extended his "deepest condolences to Julen's wholefamily". The Civil Guard police force, whose explosives experts had helpedelite miners in digging a tunnel to reach Julen, tweeted a photo of an eye withtears pouring out. "Unfortunately, despite so much effort by so manypeople, it wasn't possible..." it wrote on its official account.
'Colossalmission'
Spain had beenriveted by the complex search-and-rescue operation, which was fraught withcomplications that caused delay upon delay as Julen's distraught parents andrelatives stood by. It was "a colossal mission", Gomez de Celis toldreporters yesterday morning, that involved "moving 85,000 tonnes of earthin a brief space of time... with the obstacle course that the mountain wasthrowing at us".
There had been nosign of life from the boy but rescuers believed they knew where he was insidethe well. The only evidence of the boy's presence were some strands of hairthat matched his DNA and a bag of candy he had been holding when he fell intothe well. Rescuers were not able to get to Julen via the well he fell downbecause it was blocked by a layer of earth, sand and stones believed to havebeen dislodged when he tumbled in.
Afterunsuccessfully trying to suck up the blockage using machines, they decided todig a vertical shaft parallel to the well. The idea was to secure the shaftwith tubes then take elite miners down in a specially made cage to startdigging a horizontal tunnel to the site where they believe the child was. Butthe tubes designed to secure the shaft did not fit, so they had to widen it,delaying the operation further.
Eventually theysucceeded and expert miners on Thursday began painstakingly digging afour-metre tunnel to join both channels, with the help of small, controlledexplosions. The miners worked in teams of two and were equipped with oxygentanks. Despite the passage of time, the boy's relatives held out hope thatJulen had somehow survived the fall and would be found alive. An autopsy of theboy is currently being carried out and an investigation into the circumstancesof his fall into the unmarked, illegally-dug well - one of many in Andalusia -will be carried out by an investigating judge. - AFP