  We reveal the nature of the avalanche collapse of the giant viable component
in multiplex networks under perturbations such as random damage. Specifically,
we identify latent critical clusters associated with the avalanches of random
damage. Divergence of their mean size signals the approach to the hybrid phase
transition from one side, while there are no critical precursors on the other
side. We find that this discontinuous transition occurs in scale-free multiplex
networks whenever the mean degree of at least one of the interdependent
networks does not diverge.
