Valencia devastated by Dana, 140 dead

Spain is in shock after the disastrous flood that hit the Valencia region, whose toll has risen to at least140 dead. In the La Torre and Castellar neighborhoods, the city mayor Maria Jose’ Català’ said, eight bodies were found in a garage: among them there was also a local police officer. In the same area, the body of a woman was found in a house. Three deaths had already been recorded yesterday, and a thirteenth victim died in hospital. The updated budget will be released later in the day.

It’s about the most serious bulletin since the 1973 flood: 300 people died then, but this time too the number is destined to increase due to the numerous missing people (even if there is no precise estimate), warned the Minister of Territorial Policies ngel Victor Torres.

The prime minister Pedro Sanchez which declared three days of national mourning, he will be in Valencia, where he will visit the Rescue Coordination Centre (Cecopi). Yesterday in a short televised speech the socialist leader assured that the government will not leave the victims “alone”.

According to emergency services, thousands of people were still without electricity in the Valencia region early this morning; many roads remain closed and countless wrecked cars are scattered everywhere, covered in mud and debris, blocking passageways. According to the authorities, one of the most affected places was Paiporta, in the southern outskirts of Valencia, where around forty people died, including a mother and her three-month-old baby, swept away by the current.

The president of the Valencia region, Carlos Manzo’n, said last night that the emergency services have carried out “200 land and 70 air rescue operations” with helicopters during the day. He also specified that the emergency services managed to reach all the affected areas, while several villages remained isolated from the rest of the country for a good part of yesterday. According to the Aemet meteorological agency, in during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, more than 300 liters of water per square meter fell in several locations in the Valencian region, with a peak of 491 liters in the small village of Chiva: this is the equivalent of “a year of rainfall”, according to said.

The Spanish press, which defined what happened as “the flood of the century”, questions in its comments the speed of reaction of the authorities: the Civil Protection alert message to residents was in fact sent after 8pm on Tuesday. Valencian region and in general on the Spanish Mediterranean coast the phenomenon known as “gota fria” occurs regularly in autumn (“cold drop”), or Dana, an isolated depression at high altitude that causes sudden and very violent rains, sometimes for several days. Their violence is now increased by the consequences of global warming, experts have pointed out.