Valencia/Madrid.- Dozens of people welcomed the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the regional president of Valencia, Carlos Mazón, this Sunday with shouts of ‘get out’ and throwing mud at the delegation of the kings of Spain, during his visit to the town of Paiporta, epicenter of the storm that hit the province of Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast, last Tuesday.
Hundreds of volunteers and neighbors interrupted the cleaning tasks of the streets and basements when they saw the procession arrive with repeated shouts of “out, out” and the throwing of mud and mud, which reached the kings and the rest of the authorities, in a town that suffered the loss of at least 62 people to the floods.
At the beginning of the visit and amidst cries of “murderers”, a broomstick or shovel was seen falling next to the area where President Sánchez was and, from that moment on, he was surrounded by his security team as he grew the tumult and part of the security device opened umbrellas to protect the procession from the mud and stones thrown by the neighbors.
The volunteers faced the king and the rest of the politicians, and the kings stopped to talk to some of the young people who approached them, very upset, with the purpose of calming them down.
With his face stained with mud, like his coat, the monarch, accompanied at times by Mazón, continued advancing along one of the main streets of the town and spoke with some of the indignant neighbors.
The queen also stood with several people as shouts of ‘out, out’ and some insults directed at all authorities continued, and at least one of the queen’s bodyguards suffered a visible wound to the forehead.
While they were trying to establish a security cordon around the king, a cavalry unit from the police force intervened to drive away the most exalted.
This Valencian town, from which the kings have already left, was the first stop on their visit to the areas most affected by the floods.
More rain threats
Valencia is the region hardest hit by the effects of the storm, with 213 fatalities and continues to focus on cleaning streets, homes, shops and garages, with more machinery, Army troops and help from other communities, but again under the threat of more rain.
The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has an orange and/or yellow alert in various parts of the region, where up to 100 liters per square meter could be collected in twelve hours.
Even so, thousands of professional troops and volunteers – today with restrictions – once again became protagonists of the wave of solidarity, focusing their efforts on removing mud, delivering food and basic necessities, and searching for of the missing.
Another focus of the day is on a shopping center in the vicinity of the town of Aldaia, hit hard by the tragedy. In its underground parking lot, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) continues to extract water, because there could be more deaths there; Tonight they hope to be able to visit the place.
As explained by a spokesperson for the UME, since Wednesday, teams have been deployed extracting water and mud from this shopping center, but there is still one and a half meters of water in the parking lot and it is unknown how many cars and people can be found.
The other focus this Sunday is on the volunteers. Thousands of people, as happened the previous days, went to the municipalities near Valencia affected by the floods to continue with the cleaning work, despite the prohibition decreed by the regional government to guarantee the mobility of all essential services. .
But dressed in cleaning utensils, they set off along the shoulders.
Today the lifeless body of a 70-year-old woman was also found in Letur, Albacete (east), who disappeared on Tuesday swept away by the flood next to part of her home, bringing the number of victims to three in the region of Castilla. -La Mancha and one more in Andalusia, making a total of 217 throughout Spain.