The Land Army decided yesterday to provisionally remove the command of the company "immediately" from the captain responsible for the training exercises that were carried out on Thursday at the Cerro Muriano base in Córdoba, where two soldiers drowned. The decision was adopted "without prejudice to the outcome of the judicial investigation that is being carried out".
The dead, Corporal Miguel Ángel Jiménez Andújar (34 years old) and Private Carlos León Rico (24 years old), both of the Infantry Regiment La Reina 2, were doing buoyancy maneuvers in the Guadanuño reservoir of the military base of the Guzmán el Bueno X brigade when they disappeared around 9:00 am. Their bodies were rescued from the water by the search operation at 3:00 p.m. and at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.
The soldiers died by "drowning", as the delegate of the Spanish Government in Andalusia, Pedro Fernández, pointed out yesterday, based on the results of the autopsies. It will be necessary to wait for the investigation, undertaken by the court of inquiry number 4 of Córdoba and the Civil Guard, to determine whether the death of these soldiers is due to imprudence on the part of the captain of the company, removed from his duties for a preventive way; if all the required security measures had been taken or if any fault had been committed.
The accident took place when the company was carrying out a watercourse crossing exercise in this reservoir in the middle of the Sierra Morena. As explained yesterday by El País, citing direct witnesses, the soldiers entered the water, which did not reach 4 degrees, loaded with all the equipment and with little light, since it was not daylight. When the first soldiers were crossing the reservoir, in which they could not find a footing and which has a muddy bottom, some of them began to call for help and shout that they were drowning, at which time those waiting to enter the water rushed to rescue them. Most managed to get ashore, but when the count was made it was found that the corporal and the private were missing, whose bodies were recovered from the bottom of the lake in the afternoon by agents of the Special Underwater Activities Group of the Civil Guard. At least two of those rescued had to be evacuated with symptoms of hypothermia to receive medical assistance.
The professional associations of the military asked yesterday that a comprehensive investigation be opened to check whether the relevant security measures were adopted. In particular, the associations believe that it should be clarified whether a "lifeline" had been set up - a safety rope that the soldiers must hold on to - for these maneuvers and whether there was ambulance, as is usually mandatory.
The localities of the two dead, Villafranca de Córdoba and El Viso del Alcor (Seville) decreed that yesterday was an official day of mourning.
