Firemen pull worker's body from earth as brother remains buried

Firemen have pulled out the dead body of one of two Spanish workers buried under earth in an accident on a Madrid building site on Tuesday. The other trapped man reportedly remained alive after emergency services had managed to access and stabilize him.

The accident occurred at around 5pm as the two men, both brothers, were working along with other colleagues on the construction of a house in the San Blas district of the capital. For reasons not yet known - perhaps a landslide or perhaps a fall - the men ended up submerged under earth in a ditch.

Around 30 fireman were yesterday working carefully to empty the ditch, taking it in turns with shovels and employing a small sand extractor in order to avoid injuring the surviving worker.

Domingo Martínez, a UGT labor union representative who was present at the rescue scene, believes the men were building the drainage channel for the house in the ditch, which, according to regulations, should have been shored up with wooden boards and props.

"We are currently doing a campaign on workplace safety and 95 percent of the places we have seen are still not complying with safety laws," Martínez said.