Spain remains in a state of shock over the tragedy caused by torrential rains and floods that left hundreds dead in the province of Valencia.
While the Spanish army is deployed together with local emergency services to attend to the affected populations, the authorities admit that the current toll of 205 deaths, 202 of them in Valencia, will increase as access is made to the streets and roads blocked by the mud and the cars swept away by the deadly flood.
According to José Ángel Núñez, head of Climatology at the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) in Valencia, in statements cited by Cadena Ser, “the humanitarian catastrophe is going to occur and it is going to be the most serious in Spain probably since 1962,” when floods left a thousand dead in the Vallés region, in Catalonia.
And Jorge Olcina, a climatologist at the University of Alicante, told BBC Mundo that “these things should not happen in a developed country that has the means that Spain has.”
Three days after the rains, many inside and outside Spain are wondering what caused a catastrophe of such magnitude in a country unaccustomed to natural disasters with such a high cost in human lives.
There are several causes.
1. Exceptional rainfall
Although torrential rains and storms are common in the Mediterranean regions of Spain in the months of September and October, those that fell in the most affected areas shattered the records.
In the province of Valencia, up to 500 liters of water fell per square meter and in some of its towns it rained more in one hour than it usually does throughout the year..
As explained for The Conversation José María Bodoque, a researcher specialized in flood risk assessment at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, “precipitation quickly saturated the soil, generating sudden floods in torrents, channels and boulevards that broke out in a few hours, which limited the time of response.”
Videos posted on social networks by residents of some of the affected municipalities showed how a tongue of water and mud was spreading through streets and sidewalks even in areas where it was not raining.
It was just the beginning of a nightmare whose extent at that time he could not imagine.
2. Lack of foresight
Despite the fact that the State Meteorological Agency raised its alert level to the maximum on the morning of Tuesday the 29th due to the Isolated Depression at High Levels (DANA) that brought the rains, and warned of “a very high level of risk for the population” , the authorities did not adopt exceptional measures.
Carlos Mazón, president of the regional government of the Valencian Community, declared around 1:00 p.m. of that day: “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, a few hours later it devastated a large part of the province of Valencia.
By the time Civil Protection sent an alert message to citizens’ mobile phones, the water was already out of control in several points and many were clinging to trees or taking refuge on rooftops to save themselves from an unstoppable torrent.
As bodies are found, it becomes clear that many died by drowning in the cars in which they were traveling or even trying to get them out of the garage to prevent the water that accumulated in basements and basements from damaging them.
“People continued to lead normal lives and there was too much of the population exposedwith people moving through streets and highways, or in low houses, when some areas should have been sheltered or even evacuated,” says climatologist Olcina, who believes that “in these situations evacuation orders should be issued and security forces involved to that they reach the population.”
While controversy grows in Spain over whether it was the regional or central government that was responsible for the failure to take measures in time, Olcina believes that the catastrophe “has shown that the autonomous state model adopted in Spain does not have well-oiled mechanisms to deal with it.” to an emergency of this magnitude.”
“In a situation like this, there is no room for political dispute or distinctions between local and national, a timely initiative is required.”
3. Disorganized urban planning
The traumatic experience of the DANA of 2024 has once again highlighted the historical problem of the disorderly occupation of territory on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, one of the most densely populated and tourist areas of the country, where construction has been going on for decades in flood-prone areas. .
In the Valencian Community there are many seasonal watercourses, usually dry but exposed to occasional floods, and the neighborhoods in which thousands of people live today have been built.
This is what has happened on the Poyo Rambla, in the town of Chiva, one of those that has been devastated by the water.
Episodes such as the overflowing of the Júcar river in Valencia in 1957 or the floods in Alicante in 1982, which left dozens of dead, already highlighted a problem whose consequences have now proven even more devastating.
The expert José María Bodoque points out in The Conversation that “in relation to these events, the main amplifying factor of loss of human life, victims and economic damage is the urbanization of the river spaces of channels and boulevards, a circumstance that has also occurred in the majority of the affected urban centers for DANA.”
4. The impact of climate change
Isolated depressions at high levels, and the heavy rains in a short period of time that they bring with them, are a common phenomenon at the end of summer in the Spanish Levant.
Traditionally known as the cold drop, the phenomenon occurs when an isolated polar air mass begins to circulate at very high altitudes and collides with the warmer and more humid air typical of the Mediterranean at the end of summer, often triggering storms that discharge large amounts of water in a short time.
The locals are used to them, but not to events as destructive as this week’s.
Experts point out that climate change is probably contributing to its frequency and intensity.
According to climatologist Olcina, “with the waters of the Mediterranean increasingly warmer, increasingly powerful clouds are forming and producing more precipitation.”
Other experts have expressed themselves along the same lines, and a preliminary report from the academic organization World Weather Attribution, focused on weighing the impact of global warming on extreme events, has established that it made the rains that fell on Spain 12% more intense. and doubled the chances of them occurring.
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