Barcelona Letter: The latest political scandal here has brought a whole new meaning to the phrase "digging oneself out of a hole".
Adding a few more stops to the blue metro line had been going well until the tunnel collapsed under the quiet barrio of Carmel a month ago this week, leaving a huge crater behind on a residential street. But that was only the start of the trouble.
Immediately, cracks snaked up the walls of nearby apartments and thousands of alarmed residents were evacuated from their homes by local police and rescue services. Some of the buildings were considered so unsafe that residents were not allowed back inside to fetch their belongings before the wrecking ball arrived. They were, however, permitted to "sift through the rubble" afterwards.
The first finger of blame for the "landslip" was pointed at the minister of territorial policy and public works, Joaquim Nadal. He went before the parliament and admitted that the "serious accident" in Carmel could have been avoided, but said that the technicians and constructors involved were not negligent.
The following week, as pressure on him mounted, he was back in parliament saying it was all the fault of the technical specialists.
Meanwhile, the Catalonian Official College of Geologists said that it had not been asked to sign any certificates assessing the suitability for tunnelling of the sub-surface in the area. It cited "poor project management" for the fiasco.
The Catalan government denied any wrongdoing, but city officials later admitted that ground surveys conducted before the construction began were inadequate.
Tired of watching the buck being passed around, the Carmel Residents' Association took matters into its own hands and contracted independent geologists to go down into the tunnel and produce a report, but the Catalan government promptly denied them access for "security reasons".
Socialist regional premier Pasqual Maragall compared what happened in Carmel to the Prestige Oil disaster in 2002, when 77,000 tonnes of spilled fuel blackened the beaches of Galicia in north-west Spain.
Carmel residents can choose to be either relocated or given cash to the value of their old homes before the land subsided.
Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero came to commiserate with locals and promise them three lines of additional compensation: €10,000 to those who lost their homes; €1,500 for those who lost possessions; and €6,000 for whoever had to be relocated because of damaged homes.
Josep Lleida, general secretary of the opposition nationalist CiU party, accused Zapatero of leaving the ball in the hands of his party colleagues in the Catalan government and the Barcelona city council. "Everyone else is carrying the burden while he seeks the applause. He's acting like a big city boss coming to visit a colony. It's shameful."
Last week, the Catalan parliament convened an extraordinary two-day session to debate the Carmel crisis and heads began to roll. The first resignation came from general transport boss Jordi Julia, who approved the Barcelona metro project back in November 2003 during the previous CiU administration. The second was Ramon Serra, who was president of GISA, the public company responsible for carrying out the work.
In the midst of a fierce argument over Carmel, Maragall accused the CiU - which was in power from 1980 until 2003 - of accepting 3 per cent backhanders on public works contracts awarded to a select few firms.
"You have a little problem called 3 per cent and history will judge you harshly," he fumed. In response, CiU leader Artur Mas threatened to end all collaboration with Maragall's coalition administration, hinting that his party would block a much-hyped initiative for increased Catalan home rule. Maragall retracted his comments.
The Carmel Residents' Association is demonstrating in the city centre to voice its "weariness, anger and dismay" at how political mud-slinging over the debacle has overshadowed its misery. Hundreds of people are still in temporary accommodation, supervising their children's schoolwork in hotel bars and awaiting their compensation or relocation.
According to Barcelona mayor Joan Clos, an estimated €235 million will be needed to repair the damage. He says that the city council will stump up 20 per cent of that, but has asked the Spanish and Catalan governments to provide the additional €185 million.
It looks as if the Carmel disaster story is not going to simply disappear for the convenience of the government - new reports suggest that the damage is spreading. Large cracks have appeared in at least 40 buildings, some of them 700 metres away from where the street caved in, but all close to where the extension of the metro line is being built.
We expect corresponding cracks in the politicians' resolve to play down the incident and distance themselves from it.