Maryland Occupational Safety and Health officials are investigating the trench collapse in Catonsville last week that killed two construction workers.

A Maryland Department of Labor spokesperson confirmed the investigation.

It’s not unusual for Maryland to investigate fatalities or other serious workplace injuries. Citation reports from MOSH investigations are due within 60 days of an incident.

Emerson Amestica, 24, and Wilmer Barzallo, 32, died Feb. 28 in the 500 block of Academy Road in Catonsville. They were part of a crew working on a basement.

The crew had been digging a trench around one side of the home, two neighbors said.

Working in trenches is dangerous. Just 1 cubic yard of soil can weigh as much as a car, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Some sort of collapse protection, either a trench box or sloping, is required for any trenches more than 5 feet deep.

The trench at the Catonsville home was about 8 feet deep, a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesperson said.

Amestica and Barzallo are the fifth and sixth workers to die in trenches in the United States so far in 2025, according to Jordan Barab, a former deputy assistant secretary of labor who runs a workplace safety newsletter.

On his website, Barab wrote there is “no excuse for anyone to ever die in a trench collapse. None.”

Barab said in an email he’s worried that workplace deaths, injuries and illnesses could increase if OSHA is affected by cuts, policy changes or firings during the Trump administration.

It’s already rare for employers to be visited by federal workplace inspectors, he wrote, so “any cut in OSHA enforcement will make it even less likely that an employer will ever see an OSHA inspector.”