The Spanish Meteorological Agency lifted its red alert to bad weather in the south and east of theSpainat the end of a night marked by heavy rainfall, for which the authorities have not reported any new victims at this stage.
“No worst of this second depression is over“indicated on the social network having done at least 223 dead.
The public agency had placed these two regions on red alert on Wednesday evening, the maximum possible level, in a region with an “extreme” risk of flooding linked to the presence of a new “cold drop“, an isolated high altitude depression quite common in autumn on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
This alert was initially supposed to remain in effect until 12 p.m. (11 a.m. GMT) for the coastline of the Valencia region, and 8 a.m. (7 a.m. GMT) for the province of Malaga. “Avoid travel. Rivers overflow and flooding may occur,” she warned.
Preventive evacuations, traffic restrictions
This alert, issued just two weeks after the deadly floods that hit the south-east of the country, had revived the fears of residents, particularly in the affected communities, where around fifteen people are still missing and where clearance work is continuing. continue.
In the Valencia region, this situation has pushed the authorities to issue traffic restrictions and suspend classes on Thursday in more than a hundred municipalities.
Rail traffic between Barcelona and Valencia has been suspended, while the resumption of trains on the Madrid-Valencia line, scheduled for Thursday morning, has been postponed.
Only the travel for “case of force majeure” are allowedannounced Wednesday evening the conservative president of the Valencia region Carlos Mazón, widely criticized for his lack of responsiveness and his chaotic management of the floods at the end of October.
In Malaga, where several roads were flooded and air traffic was severely disrupted, the metro was closed and the train line to Madrid was suspended.
More than 4,200 people were also evacuated “preventively”according to authorities. “Prevention is better than cure, we saw it in Valencia,” had justified the president of the Andalusia region, Juan Manuel Moreno, during a trip to Seville.
No new victims
According to Aemet, torrential rain did indeed fall overnight in the regions concerned, with accumulations of 110 liters of water per square meter (110 millimeters) in Alcudia de Veo, in the hinterland of Valencia, and 88 liters (88mm) in Chiva, a village already hit by the floods at the end of October.
These rains forced emergency services to carry out new rescue operations, both in Andalusia and in the Valencia region. But no new victims had been reported by authorities as of Thursday morning. “At this time, there are no victims in Andalusia”Mr. Moreno declared on RTVE.
Faced with fears of new floods, residents had drawn up plans on Wednesday morning makeshift barricades with bags of earth in front of the doors of houses in Paiporta, a town in the suburbs of Valencia considered to be the epicenter of the disaster of October 29.
The authorities were particularly afraid of seeing overflow the still clogged sewers by the tons of mud and rubbish which accumulated in the affected communities at the end of October, which the authorities have not yet been able to completely evacuate.
Valencia authorities were heavily criticized for their management of bad weather on October 29. This indignation gave rise to massive demonstrations on Saturday, the largest of which brought together 130,000 people in Valencia.
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