The human cost of the construction work
Circa 1959. Manuel Aranda, en la izquierda, y Jesús Pais, en la derecha, en la sala de máquinas de Los Hurones (Cádiz). Fotografía cortesía de Virgilio Pais

Back to A workers' town in the Sierra de Cádiz (Spain): the memory thread,

Next : Women and poverty in the workers’ environment

The human cost of the construction work

All those interviewed remember deaths in work accidents: falls, buried in landslides, hit by machinery, buried in the wells… Carmelo Cantillo (Santa María de Nava, Badajoz, 1938) was 14 when his father, Fernando Cantillo, died in an accident while building houses: «The slopes at the back were soaked and there was a very large stone loose in the earth. It slid down, fell on top of him and killed him. As simple as that. He hadn´t been working there for a year yet».

Several people were electrocuted, among them Manuel Aranda, in the photo with Jesús Pais. Virgilio Pais (Negreira, A Coruña, 1946) remembers the facts: «It was 1960. My brother Jesús was an electrician and took turns in the engine room with Manuel Aranda. One day when he arrived for the morning shift he found his charred body. He was 32. Later, my brother died on another site».

The left bank near the dam, of clayey soil and sandstone, is prone to landslides, but the risks were not evaluated properly. Several serious landslides, known locally as greeras, happened in the rainy season, which meant they had to rethink the project and change the location of the installations.