Valencia flood

DirectDemocracyS, and everyone who is part of it, sends our most sincere condolences to anyone who has lost a relative, a friend, or an acquaintance, due to the terrible floods of the past few days. Our closeness, our comfort, and our concrete support, to anyone who has lost their animals, their possessions, and their homes. We hope that all the missing can be found, alive, and that essential services, water, electricity, can be restored, and that all the people, and animals, in difficulty can be rescued.

To our friends at DirectDemocracyS Spain, who are fortunately all well, a hug, and the closeness of all of us. We know that many of them are making a concrete effort to lend a hand to those in difficulty.

This is one of the reasons why we have not received much information and official communications.

In these cases, and in many others, concrete activities to lend a hand are more important and more useful.

We have the following information so far.

Valencia flood, over 200 dead. Victims trapped in tunnels. 360 thousand without water.

Firefighters: “Inside a tunnel along the road that goes from Alfafar and Benetuser, you found about 30-40 cars with several victims inside”. “Many people were on the lower floors of houses, in garages, there may still be survivors”, said the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles. Two hundred displaced people in the southwest of the country. Seven missing found alive. 50,000 without electricity. Alert for heavy and persistent rains in the western half of Andalusia, in the lower Ebro and in the Balearic Islands.

Spain is still on alert after the extreme rainfall that brought Valencia to its knees, causing over 200 deaths and hundreds of missing. Among the victims are a 4-year-old boy from the tiny village of Sot de Chera and 28-year-old José Castillejo Belinchón, a former footballer who trained in the Valencia youth sector. The emergency remains high after approximately 366,000 inhabitants of about twenty municipalities in the Valencia region are still without drinking water while 50,000 are in the dark. Due to the lack of water caused by pipes that burst due to the flooding, in some municipalities it is not possible to proceed with cleaning the mud that has dried in the meantime. And today the alert has also moved to the western half of Andalusia, in the lower Ebro and in the Balearic Islands, due to heavy and persistent rains. The State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has activated a red alert for rain on the coast of Huelva and in the regions of Arévalo and Condado. However, during the day, the alert seems to have been reduced in these areas while it remains high in the Balearic Islands.

In a tunnel victims inside cars

Several victims were found in a tunnel, inside their cars. "We worked all night in a tunnel, along the road that goes from Alfafar to Benetuser. It was completely flooded, now it is completely cleared of water. Inside there are about 30, 40 cars with several victims inside," Salvador Olivas, head of a team of 14 firefighters from Malaga who arrived in Valencia immediately after the floods, told Andalusian media.

Roads and railway lines to be rebuilt

In the region of Valencia, the priority is to guarantee basic necessities such as water, food and medicine to the affected populations. The Valencian Community will remain isolated from rail links with Madrid and partly from Catalonia for at least two weeks after the damage to the railway: in addition, 150 arteries of the road network are devastated, while several sections of the A7 motorway connecting to Madrid remain interrupted, with columns of dozens of campers and cars stopped on the edges of the motorway. "More than 80 km of road network have been damaged and the priority is to urgently reactivate the A7 motorway, which is interrupted and impossible to travel on", an intervention for which "it will take 10 or 12 days to be operational again", the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Oscar Puente, told TVE, assuring that work has begun to re-establish the road network of the region of Valencia, damaged by Dana, where "the situation is extremely serious". The minister reported that they have managed to "re-establish the north-south connection". Regarding rail transport, Puente confirmed that the Madrid-Valencia TAV line will be restored "in two, maximum 3 weeks", after the reconstruction of two tunnels in two of the affected municipalities of Torrent and Chive. While regional trains, after the destruction of 3 of the 5 railway lines, "will take months to be fully operational". The minister noted that "for now it has not been possible to establish an alternative mobility plan" for the thousands of commuters who travel between Valencia and the hinterland, which will not be possible "until the roads are cleared and passable".

Seven missing found alive, over 120,000 displaced.

Meanwhile, the government of Ecuador confirmed that seven of the eight Ecuadorians reported missing have been found alive and stressed that it is monitoring official Spanish information on the deceased to identify possible cases of fellow countrymen. More than 120,000 people have been displaced, and at least 500 people have stayed in hotels in the Valencia region, where more than a thousand soldiers from the army's Emergency Unit are working to clear 119 regional roads cut off by mud and debris brought by torrential rains.

124 elderly people rescued on shoulders

Among the happy ending stories is that of 124 elderly residents on the lower floor of a nursing home in Sedaví, near Valencia, saved in extremis by their nurses: they carried them on their shoulders or in their arms and, while the water level went from 0 centimeters to two meters in a matter of minutes and the elevator was out of order, they took them to the upper floors. "They are all alive," the ten workers told the newspaper El Periódico with relief. "Some have wounds to treat, others spent the night without oxygen, but no one was lost," they added. And again: "We took them to the first floor, but then we saw that the water continued to rise and so we made them go up to the second."

Volunteers on foot bring aid to Valencia flood victims

Shovels to dig in the mud, food and water are the first needs of the flooded populations in the Valencia area, and thousands of citizens who are trying to lend a hand are forming, as La Vanguardia and other media report, caravans on foot to bring this aid to the most affected areas. The main direction of this river of volunteers is from the city of Valencia to the hinterland areas devastated by the floods of the past few days: among these Sedaví, Alfafar, Paiporta, Picanya, Albal and Catarroja. "Thanks to all the public servants and the thousands of volunteers who, in tragedies like the one we are experiencing, are an example of solidarity and dedication", wrote Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in X. Meanwhile, a request has also arrived from the regional emergency services coordination center: "With the deepest gratitude to the volunteers for the help they are providing to the affected populations, we ask you please not to go to these areas, because traffic is collapsing and emergency services cannot access".

Defense Minister: "There may still be people alive in Valencia"

"Many people were on the lower floors of houses, in garages, trying to save cars, there may still be people alive among those who are in this situation," Defense Minister Margarita Robles said in statements to national television TVE, referring to residents of municipalities in the area south of Valencia. "There are places where there are cars piled up on top of other cars and vehicles where there may be people inside," Robles added. The minister then thanked the 1,200 soldiers from the Army's Emergency Unit stationed in the Levante area, who "are working tirelessly," with 300 vehicles, who since 8 this morning has been joined by another 500 soldiers from the Army and Air Force. "Everyone who is needed will join, with all means," Robles assured.

Two hundred displaced people in the southwest of the country

Overflowing rivers, flooded streets and sidewalks in urban areas, families displaced: the southwest of Spain is also struggling with the effects of Dana. The most worrying situation was experienced in the middle of the night in the province of Huelva where, according to local media, a violent downpour caused flooding in both the city of the same name and other nearby towns. "Please, do not leave your home unless it is essential," asked the governor of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, to the residents of the area. Another delicate point is that of a rural area near Jerez de la Frontera, in the province of Cadiz: there, the flooding of the Guadalete river led to the preventive evacuation of around 200 people, according to Diario de Jeréz.

Alert in the Balearic Islands

Dana, the phenomenon of sudden and violent downpours that has devastated eastern Spain, is now approaching the Balearic Islands, where several weather warnings are active. "It is expected to reach Mallorca in the next few hours," the regional emergency service warned on X. "It has already left 100 l/m2 in the western area," the message continued, "great caution is needed." The service also reported that so far in Mallorca there have been 14 reports of flooding on public roads. A message urging caution and avoiding "flood zones" was also shared by the official account of the presidency of the national government, La Moncloa. According to the local newspaper Última Hora, three torrents in Mallorca "are about to overflow." "Luckily, people are listening to the warnings and are not taking to the streets," a police officer from the area told the newspaper.