Madrid--Family and friends of two Spanish cavers who died after being trapped for days in a deep ravine in Morocco criticised Rabat on Monday over the rescue effort, while the sole survivor was said to be in good condition.
The survivor, policeman Juan Bolivar, 27, was evacuated from the scene of the accident in the High Atlas mountains by police on Sunday night on a stretcher with his eyes closed and legs bandaged, then taken to a hospital in Ouarzazate in southern Morocco.
"He has been examined by a multi-disciplinary team of specialists, and his state of health is good," regional health ministry official Dr Khalid Salmi told AFP on Monday.
The bodies of his two companions have not yet been recovered from the depths of the 400-metre (1,320-foot) ravine in an area extremely difficult to reach.
Fellow cavers raised the alarm on Tuesday after the trio failed to meet up with them in Ouarzazate but they were only spotted alive on Saturday morning by Moroccan search teams, with heavy fog hindering the rescue, officials said.
Spanish public television station TVE, quoting Moroccan rescue workers, said one of the three had possibly slipped on a patch of ice, dragging the other two down with him as he fell.
As rescue workers scrambled to reach the trio, Moroccan officials said late Saturday that one of the men -- 41-year-old lawyer Gustavo Virues -- had died.
Spain's interior ministry announced late on Sunday that a second man, policeman Jose Antonio Martinez, 41, had also died while awaiting rescue.
"If on the day that we sounded the alarm a helicopter had flown over the region, the deceased would not be dead," one of the cavers whom the trio was going to meet up with, Juan Rangel, said in an interview published in Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
After the three went missing, "in 48 hours we rented cars to reach the ravine, hired a guide, and were the first to arrive" at the scene, he added without specifying on what day they reached the accident site.
AFP
