The magnitude of the tragedy due to the floods and floods that left dozens dead in southeastern Spain has raised questions about the preparation and response of the authorities to the emergency.
The province of Valencia, the most affected, and those of Albacete and Cuenca suffered torrential rains that overflowed the river beds, flooded streets and fields, swept away cars, destroyed bridges and left the highest number of dead and missing due to a natural disaster in the recent history of Spain.
While emergency services are still searching for the missing among the mud and water that floods the affected towns, questions are growing in Spain about the management of the disaster.
Residents of the impacted areas reported in the local media and on social networks that The authorities did not notify them so that they could prepare adequately.
They state that they received the Civil Protection alert on their phones calling to avoid travel when it had already been raining for several hours. and many had been trapped in buildings and in vehicles carried away by the uncontrollable force of the water.
Barbara Jiménez, a waitress at a restaurant in Valencia, told Spanish Television that her boss did not let her go home because she did not see the situation as “serious enough” until the telephone alert arrived at 8:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday. but then “it was too late.”
By now, water had already blocked many roads and hundreds of drivers were trapped on them.
What was the response of the authorities to DANA?
The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) had been warning since Thursday the 24th of the arrival in the Iberian Peninsula of an Isolated Depression at High Levels (DANA), the atmospheric phenomenon that caused the disaster.
On Tuesday the 29th at 07:30 in the morning, the Aemet raised a red alert for rain, which implies the forecast of “unusual phenomena of exceptional intensity and with a very high level of risk for the population”.
At 11:50, the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation, an organization dependent on the Spanish government in charge of managing the waters of the Júcar river, which runs through the affected area, reported through the social network ” and another saw his wealth grow “significantly.”
Around 1:00 p.m., Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat Valenciana, the regional government of the Valencian Community, asked on social networks for “prudence on the roads and close attention to the instructions of the authorities.”
But Mazón also said: “according to the forecast, the storm is moving towards the Serranía de Cuenca at the moment, so it is expected that its intensity will decrease around 6:00 p.m.” in the Valencian Community.
Instead, he moved through the region wreaking havoc.
According to the Efe agency’s account, at 7:17 p.m., the Generalitat raised the alert to Level 2 in the regions of Utiel, Requena and La Plana.
And finally, at 8:00 p.m., he sent the alert message to the mobile phones of the entire population.
By then, the majority of Valencians already knew that the situation was exceptional and dangerous because they were seeing it with their own eyes.
At 8:36 p.m., the Spanish government ordered the deployment of the Military Emergency Unit (UME) at the request of the Valencian autonomous government to collaborate with local emergency services.
Finally, after noon this Wednesday, when it was already known that there were dozens of dead and missing, the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, addressed a televised message to the population offering the country’s support and solidarity to the affected areas.
The Spanish government also announced the declaration of Catastrophic Zone in the affected areas.
What went wrong
The management of the emergency has drawn criticism from citizens and local authorities.
Andreu Salom, mayor of L’Alcúdia, one of the affected towns, said he felt “abandoned and absolutely helpless.” He noted: “as mayor, no one informed me that the Magro River could overflow.” He said that the population “has been filled with water, mud and debris.”
The regional government of Carlos Mazón has been criticized because one of the first decisions it made upon coming to power was to eliminate the Valencian Emergency Unit, to which it responded that it was nothing more than “another fictitious organization, with zero firefighters, zero materials. and zero efficiency.”
Jorge Olcina, a climatologist at the University of Alicante, told BBC Mundo that “although the exact amount of water that ended up falling was impossible to predict, there was a weather warning with enough time, and what failed was the transmission of that warning. to the population.”
Therefore, as he says, “People continued to lead normal lives despite the alert”.
For Olcina, “the information to society was not given with the necessary speed.”
Olcina recalls that “Spain has been trying to implement the European telephone emergency notification system for some time, but the process was delegated to the autonomous communities and is taking a long time.”
But the expert detects other problems.
“In Spain there is no education of the population for disaster risk prevention like what exists, for example, in the United States with hurricanes. and we should start working on that,” he says.
“In a situation like this, classes should have been suspended and people should not have gone to work if it was not essential. Obviously, that has a cost, but the price we are going to pay is now going to be higher,” he adds.
For Olcina, Episodes such as Filomena, the storm that wreaked chaos in Madrid and other parts of Spain in 2021, should lead to reflection in your country on how these emergencies are faced.
Olcina also points out the “structural problem caused because In many areas of the Spanish Mediterranean there has been uncontrolled urban growth since the mid-20th century and construction has been carried out in flood-prone areas.which, as we have seen now, are the first affected.”
Scientists warn that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of potentially catastrophic phenomena such as Isolated Depression at High Levelsa mass of air that emerges from a very cold current and descends over another of hot air, producing great atmospheric disturbances and very intense precipitation.
It is a typical situation in the regions of the Spanish Mediterranean coast in the months of September and October, and the locals are used to it.
But, “with the waters of the Mediterranean increasingly warmer, more and more powerful clouds are forming and producing more precipitation,” explains Olcina, who recalls that “Spain is now receiving Next Generation funds from the European Union and one of Its objectives are to finance climate change adaptation projects.”
“We are facing an opportunity to use them well in the most vulnerable areas, such as the Valencian Community,” he says.
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- What is a DANA, the meteorological phenomenon that caused the torrential rains that have left more than 90 dead in eastern Spain
- “The seas will give us what we deserve”: the UN Secretary General’s warning about the climate crisis