The body of the French speleologist who died this Thursday while investigating in caves in Soba (Cantabria), about 45 meters deep, has been recovered this morning from the depths after a laborious rescue work, which has needed controlled rock blasting to advance through the narrow underground spaces of this area of Portillo de la Sía. The deceased, who belonged to a French research group formed by three speleologists, was surprised by a rockslide, which trapped him to death. His two companions were able to leave the chasm and notify the emergency services, which have culminated this morning the rescue, after hours of work in the bowels of the earth, in the Cantabrian valley of Soba. More than 30 people have participated in the recovery work.
The exact place where the accident occurred has greatly complicated the performance of the rescue operations, since it was more than 45 minutes from the access point to the Soba caves, belonging to a route yet to be popularized. Once the surviving French researchers were able to get out of the part where they suffered the landslide, they had to walk another two hours to the nearest town center, La Gándara. There, around two o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday, they alerted of what happened and began the maneuvers of recovery of the body of the trapped speleologist. About 30 people belonging to the Department of Interior of the Government of Cantabria, Red Cross speleologists, members of the Special Mountain Intervention Rescue Groups (GREIM) of the Civil Guard of Potes and Civil Protection volunteers of Ramales de la Victoria have participated in the work.
Map of the Soba Valley area.JAVIER BELLOSO
This device had to follow the route previously traveled by French researchers, under the danger of new rock falls, such as the one that had a fatal outcome a few hours earlier when the rocky roof of one of the interior rooms between those tunnels fell. The rescue group carried out controlled blasting to advance between the galleries with the stretcher that was later used to move the body of the deceased to the mouth of the cave.
The cave where the event occurred is complex and very narrow, with two wells of 25 and seven meters respectively, very narrow meanders and a circular room of 1.5 meters circular, which is where the collapse has occurred. The demand for this action required to advance with thoroughness and maximum care, which meant that those involved in the rescue arrived almost at night to the space where the deceased was, whose death they corroborated when locating him.
Both the arrival at the place where the rocks had caused tragedy and the departure with the body have been expensive to execute for the specialists of the 112, who were mobilized due to the instability of the space and the possibility of new landslides. Once they reached the outside of the caves with the remains of the man, around seven in the morning on Friday, they waited for the appearance of a rescue helicopter. This aerial means of the 112 has taken the body to the airport of Santander so that the Civil Guard takes charge of it and takes the pertinent measures on its custody and investigation of the causes of the underground accident.