These are two 50 and 50 year old workers who were buried in the Eitzaga landfill, managed by the company Verter Recycling. The events took place at 16:00 on Thursday, 6 February, and the rescue work was not slow to begin, which continued in the evening until the authorities decided to suspend works on 01:30 a.m. until a special security commission decided on Friday morning to retake them.

At noon, according to SOS Deiak, which is supported by the Basque Government, they decided at an extraordinary meeting of authorities and experts to resume the search for staff, requesting the collaboration of a team trained in the use of hazardous waste such as asbestos:

Work has been interrupted for almost 14 hours, to resume activity after 15:00:

The reason for the interruption was asbestos. Despite the fact that the Eitzaga landfill was authorised for the management of non-hazardous waste, they found asbestos at the scene. The controversy surrounding these permits was sparked early in the morning. On the one hand, because (Naiz has advanced this first detail) it refers to hazardous waste because in 2016 it is repeatedly mentioned in the Integrated Environmental Authorisation opened by the Basque Government to the company Verter Recycling. On the other hand, according to Berria, the authorities had to know from the beginning of the accident what relief services could be found with, since the authorization for the collection of asbestos was expressly granted to the company in the Integrated Environmental Authorisation granted in 2007.

The spokesmen of the Basque Government have subsequently stated in Radio Euskadi that Verter Recycling had an authorisation for the management of asbestos, which has been extended by Naiz himself since 2017.

In the morning we heard complaints from workers and trade unions about the lack of protection measures on a subject as dangerous as asbestos from the first rescuers. Subsequently, images have been disseminated in which Ertzaintza agents responsible for surveillance in the area appear wearing special clothing.

Thousands of people who have gone from Bilbao to Irun or from San Sebastian to Barakaldo for years were used to seeing this increasingly gigantic filling work at the top of the curves of the Ermua area. The immense mass has been set in motion downhill and half of the freeway will have to be closed for a long time: if you begin to remove the pile that hinders the road, it will come beyond... and it is to be seen whether the safety test will not require the complete suspension of the freeway for fear of the next rain...