The trial for the fire that occurred in 2019 at the Tableros Hispanos plant, located in Nadela (Lugo), began this Monday, seven years after the events, with a partial agreement between the Prosecutor's Office and three of the defendants. These have accepted sentences of two years in prison and one and a half years of disqualification for a crime of manslaughter and three of injury by negligence, thus assuming their responsibility in the accident, in which a worker died and three others were seriously injured.
The convicted are the legal representative of the company, the director of the factory, and a labor risk prevention technician from the company itself. None of them will go to jail, as the sentences do not exceed two years and the suspension of the execution of the sentence has been requested, which has been granted to them.
To agree to this suspension, the Public Prosecutor's Office has taken into account the partial reparation of the damage, given that a part of the compensation has already been paid, as well as the delays suffered in the processing of the judicial procedure, which have delayed its start for seven years.
The hearing also addresses the issue of compensation, which will be determined throughout this trial, scheduled for three sessions. Due to the large number of lawyers involved, the case has been moved to the Provincial Court building.
The trial continues only against a fourth defendant, an external labor risk prevention technician who has not reached any agreement with the prosecution. His defense had requested the dismissal of the case, but the court has rejected that request.
In addition, a fifth investigated party, a representative of the company responsible for developing the prevention plans, has finally been acquitted after the private prosecutions withdrew the charges filed against him.
May 2019: origin of the accident
The proceedings focus on the fire and subsequent explosion registered on May 25, 2019, at the Tableros Hispanos facilities. The fire started in one of the factory's silos and subsequently spread to other chip storage areas.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, after extinguishing the flames, the firefighters expressly warned the company's managers not to tamper with the affected silo for at least 24 hours, to avoid a possible reactivation of the fire. However, the prosecution maintains that this instruction was ignored and that the newly arrived night shift workers were ordered to proceed with the manual emptying and cleaning of the silos.
During these tasks, a new explosion occurred inside the fine shavings silo, presumably when oxygen came into contact with still active embers. The flames fully engulfed several workers who were working on an elevated walkway.
"I'm alive because I was the only one who knew how to use the shovel"
In this first session, the injured employees who were part of the crew responsible for cleaning the affected silo testified first. All of them stated that fires in the silos "were relatively frequent" and that there was no defined protocol for action. "It wasn't the first time a silo had caught fire. It was emptied manually and resolved on the fly," they explained to the court. The three were not in their usual posts and were chosen at random to perform these tasks.
The worker with the most physical after-effects from the burns, who was next to the deceased, recounted how the explosion occurred: "We were on the walkway emptying the silo and suddenly there was an explosion. Everything filled with dust and fire. I managed to get out through some pipes, but I suffered burns all over my body."
The other two operators, one operating a shovel and the other a hose, did not suffer burns, but did suffer significant psychological damage that led to their withdrawal from work. Visibly affected, they described to the court what happened inside the silo.
"I saved my life because I was the only one of the four who knew how to use the shovel, as I was initially going to go up in Julio's place," one of them explained. They were the ones who attended to the two injured individuals in an area where explosions were still occurring, "although we had no first aid training, we did what we could," one of them lamented.
The victims also recalled that, since the accident, there have been no further fires at that point in the plant. "A colleague had to die and leave three of us like this for things to be resolved," they emphasized.
Likewise, the plant manager declared that night, who held that position circumstantially, as he is a "turnover man". He supported his colleagues' version, indicating that the selection of the crew was made arbitrarily and that the boss had ordered him to proceed with the cleaning of the place "without haste" because the necessary parts to repair the machines damaged by the fire would not arrive until Monday.
One of the firefighters who intervened in the extinction has described as "unnecessary" and "erroneous" to undertake the cleaning of the area without waiting for the remains of the fire to have been "smothered" by the lack of oxygen.
The fatal victim and criminal responsibilities
The fatal victim was Julio Villanueva López, 52 years old, a resident of Lugo and a native of Samos, who died days later in the burn unit of the A Coruña University Hospital due to the very serious injuries sustained. He was a veteran employee of the factory and the father of a four-year-old girl.
In its indictment, the Prosecutor's Office notes serious deficiencies in occupational risk prevention. Among other points, it maintains that the company lacked a safe procedure for emptying the silos and had not adequately assessed the explosion risk in that work area.
The public ministry also directs reproaches against the prevention technicians, both internal and external, for not correctly identifying the risk derived from explosive atmospheres or providing specific training to the workers in charge of those tasks.
Initially, the Prosecutor's Office sought four years in prison for each of the accused for a crime against workers' rights in conjunction with reckless homicide and reckless serious injury.
In the area of civil liability, the Public Ministry claims from the company's insurer the payment of more than 1.1 million euros in compensation for the victims and their families.