Spain: Everything you need to know about the recent floods

In a matter of minutes, flash floods caused by the intense downpours that fell last Tuesday in eastern Spain, they devastated everything in their path. No time to react, People were trapped in vehicles, homes and businesses. Many died and thousands of lives were shattered.

A week later, authorities have recovered 218 bodies213 of them in the eastern region of Valencia. police, firefighters and soldiers continued the search this Tuesday of an undetermined number of missing persons.

In many of the 69 devastated towns, mostly located on the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia, The population faces shortages of basic products. Running water is back in the pipes, but authorities say It is for cleaning only and not suitable for drinking. There are lines at makeshift emergency kitchens and aid stations on streets still covered in mud and debris.

Thousands of volunteers are helping soldiers and police reinforcements, with the gigantic task of cleaning up the mud and the countless destroyed cars. At least 46,000 insurance claims have been filed for totaled vehicles, according to Spain’s Economy Minister Carlos Body.

Annoying crowds

An angry crowd in the city of Paiporta threw mud and other objects at King Felipe VI and Queen Letiziato the president of the Spanish government Pedro Sánchez and regional officials, when the leaders carried out, on Sunday, his first visit to the epicenter of the flood damage.

Thousands of volunteers are helping those affected to clean the dense layer of mud that covers homes and streets full of debris, while power and water outages persist and the shortage of some basic products. Inside some vehicles, which the water dragged until they formed piles or crashed into buildings, There are still fatalities waiting to be identified.

Four other people died in Castilla La Mancha and one more in Andalusia.

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Below are some facts about the tragedy:

The train of storms, concentrated in the basins of the Magro and Turia rivers and in the Poyo ravine — where towns like Turís received more than 630 liters/square meter in 24 hours — They caused a wall of water that overflowed the channels, taking some neighbors off guard who continued with their daily lives. Many returned home after their work day.

In the blink of an eye, muddy water covered roads, train tracks and entered houses and businesses in towns along the riverbeds and on the southern outskirts of Valencia. The drivers, with their vehicles converted into boats, had to take refuge on their roofs, while Residents tried to take refuge in higher areas.

When the authorities sent the alert to cell phones that warned the population of the seriousness of the phenomenon and asked them to stay home, many were on the road, working or covered in water in low areas or garages, that became death traps.

Possible causes of the phenomenon

The scientists who are trying to explain what happened on the Levantine coast, They see two possible connections with climate change caused by man. One is that warmer air holds and then sheds more rain. And the other are possible changes in the jet stream —the flow of air over the land that moves weather systems around the planet—resulting in extreme events.

Several climatologists and meteorologists maintain that the immediate cause of the floods is a low-pressure storm system that broke off from a jet stream unusually wavy and stagnant. That system stood over the region and dumped intense downpours.

This happens so frequently that in Spain they receive a specific name, Isolated Depression at High Levels, or DANA, according to meteorologists.

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And then there is the unusually high temperature of the Mediterranean Sea. In mid-August broke its surface record, with 28.47 degrees Celsiussaid Carola Koenig, from the Center for Flood Risk and Resilience at Brunel University London.

The phenomenon also occurs after the prolonged drought that hit the country in 2022 and 2023. Experts say drought and flood cycles are increasing with climate change.

Sánchez said this Tuesday that Climate change kills and we are seeing it first handafter announcing an aid package of 10.6 billion dollars for 78 municipalities.

Historic floods

The Spanish Mediterranean coast is used to autumn storms that can cause flooding, but This has been the most serious episode in memory. The oldest in Paiporta, ground zero of the tragedy, affirm that Last Tuesday’s floods tripled that of 1957which caused at least 81 deaths and was the worst in the history of the eastern tourist region. This flood caused the diversion of the Turia River channel, which has allowed a large part of the city to escape these floods.

Valencia suffered two other major DANAs in the 1980sone in 1982, with thirty deaths, and another five years later, which broke rainfall records.

With at least 158 ​​dead, This is also the deadliest natural tragedy in the history of Spain.surpassing the flood that devastated a campsite next to the Gállego River, in Biescas, in the northeastern province of Huesca, and killed 87 people in August 1996.

The management of this crisis, rated level two on a scale of three by the Valencia government, is in the hands of the regional authorities, which can ask the central government for help to mobilize resources.

Some 15 thousand soldiers, elements of the National Police and the Civil Guard, have been deployed in the area in the largest mobilization of military and security forces in peacetime within Spain. Military trucks, heavy road machinery, Chinook helicopters and a Navy transport ship They are helping in the distribution of humanitarian aid, the cleanup and the search for bodies.

When many of those affected said they felt abandoned by the authorities, a wave of volunteers arrived to help. Carrying brooms, shovels, water and basic food, hundreds of people walked several kilometers to deliver supplies and help clean up the most affected areas.

The Valencian regional government has been harshly criticized for not sending flood warnings to mobile phones, until 8:00 pm last Tuesday, when flooding had already started in some places, and long after the national meteorological agency issued a red alert which indicated heavy rain.

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