The Villablino region says goodbye to the deceased miners on Monday | Spain
Villablino, at the northwest end of the region, has said goodbye to its dead miners in the shock of Grisú that took them ahead in the Cerredo coal mine, Located about twenty kilometers from the town, already after the border of Asturias. In the air of the town, the news was learned of an atmosphere of dejection and Congoja. But also of unreality. Because The accident occurred on Monday, but the tragedy is typical of another timethat everyone already considered past: the mine in question, that few knew it was open, closed in 2018, only had permission to undertake research tasks and at the plant where the explosion was triggered not even that.
The retired miners who yesterday walked through the people as souls in sorrow are still not believed that mining, dead since 2018 in which they closed, in the theory forever, the wells in the Leonese aspect of this region, continue to charge lives as when he fed the economy of the region. The question that everyone is asked is always the same: What did that open mine do? Four of the five dead miners belong to the Laciana Valley, in the municipality of Villablino, and will be buried throughout the afternoon; The fifth, from Torre del Bierzo, was buried yesterday in his town.
All Villablino stores closed at noon. All bars, all public buildings, all schools and institutes. Many shops, in addition, had placed a sign with a black bond in the windows since the previous afternoon. The entire town congregated at twelve around the municipal sports center, surrounded by mountains. In addition, people from all over the region, miners of the entire province, others from Asturias and the entire Autonomous Community. Inside, the four families celebrated a somewhat more intimate funeral. It was overwhelming to witness old retired miners to look forward to the side of serious teenagers who have only met the mine for the conversations of the house. Or next to miners who stopped working a few years ago, tall as oaks, and that the sunglasses were put inside the sports center to hide the crying and emotion.
At the end of the ceremony, The friends, partners or relatives of the dead loaded with the coffin between the ovation of the thousands of attendees. Among the delegation of relatives who walked behind was José, 75, uncle of Amadeo Bernabé, 48, one of the deceased. José, as the vast majority of men over 30 years old from all over this region, has been a miner. He worked 26 years as a picador, as a bullish and, already in the end, as a vigilant, that is, as in charge of security. And he assures that in the mine where his nephew died the security measures were worse than the ones he enjoyed when he stopped working. But, according to José, Amadeo « had to grab whatever, because there is nothing here. » In 1998, Villablino had 16,000 inhabitants. Today they do not reach 8,000. That is the paradox: a dead mining that kills, a crisis that pushes to go down to the mines that caused that crisis, an old killer mine that few in Villablino knew that they were already open that now investigated to know the reasons and the purpose of being in operation.
