The death toll from this week’s apocalyptic floods in southeastern Spain reached 158 deaths on Thursday, as searches continued for missing people, the number of whom is still not precisely known. According to a ministerial source, there are still “dozens and dozens of missing people”.
The previous report, which dated from Wednesday evening, reported 95 deaths, but the authorities had made no secret of the fact that the worst had to be expected, with Defense Minister Margarita Robles saying Thursday morning that There were still “many people missing”.
Of this total, 155 deaths took place in the Valencia region alone, by far the most bereaved by the torrents of mud which ravaged this very touristy region on Tuesday evening and during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. To which we must add two deaths in the neighboring province of Castile-La Mancha and one in Andalusia.
However, the sun shone on Thursday, 48 hours after the tragedy, producing a striking contrast with the spectacle of desolation offered by all the localities in the area.
In Paiporta, a martyr town of 25,000 inhabitants in the southern suburbs of Valencia, at least 62 people died, according to the mayor, Maribel Albalat.
Still stunned, residents tried to clean the streets, covered in viscous mud, in a true end-of-the-world setting. “There is no longer a business standing,” David Romero, a 27-year-old musician, told an AFP journalist.
Visiting Valencia, capital of the eponymous region, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez strongly emphasized that the episode of bad weather was “not over” and called on the inhabitants of this region to “stay at home” and “ don’t go out.”
He was referring to a “red alert” (maximum alert level synonymous with extreme risk) launched Thursday morning by the National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) for certain areas of the province of Castellón, located just north of that of Valencia , where heavy rains fell.
However, the alert was lifted in the afternoon, moving to orange, which reflects a reduction in the danger.
More than 1,200 soldiers are deployed on the ground, mainly in the Valencia region, alongside firefighters, police and rescue workers who are seeking to locate possible survivors and are working to clear the disaster areas.
Mr. Sánchez stressed that “the priority” was to find both “the victims and the missing”, again without specifying the number.
According to authorities, thousands of people are still without electricity in the region. Many roads also remain closed, while countless car wrecks litter the roads, covered in mud and debris.
“I never thought I would experience this,” said Eliu Sánchez, resident of Sedavi, a town of 10,000 inhabitants in the suburbs of Valencia, recounting a nightmarish night.
“We saw a young man in a vacant lot taking refuge on the roof of his car,” says this 32-year-old electrician. “He tried to jump” onto another vehicle, but the current “took him away,” he said.
Mr. Mazón, the president of the Valencia region, also specified that relief had managed to reach all of the affected areas, while several villages had remained cut off from the rest of the country for a good part of the Wednesday day.
High-speed trains between Madrid and Valencia, suspended since Wednesday, will remain so at least for “two to three weeks”, indicated the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente.
According to Aemet, more than 300 liters of water per square meter (or 30 cm) fell overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in several towns in the Valencia region, with a peak of 491 liters (49.1 cm). in the small village of Chiva. This is the equivalent of “a year of precipitation,” she said.
The Valencia region and the Spanish Mediterranean coast in general regularly experience, in autumn, the phenomenon known as “gota fria” (“cold drop”), an isolated depression at high altitude which causes sudden and extremely violent rains, sometimes for several days.
Scientists say extreme weather events, such as heat waves and storms, are both becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change.
The factors that explain this terrible number of victims
Huge amounts of precipitation, presence of dry or artificial soils, lack of responsiveness from the authorities… Here are the factors explaining this terrible number of victims, according to several experts.
Rarely violent phenomenon
This deluge – linked to a “cold drop” phenomenon, an isolated depression at altitude quite common at this time of year – was such that it caused several rivers to emerge from their beds and led to the sudden formation of enormous torrents of mud.
Dry and artificial soils
The violence of the floods can also be explained by the presence of dry soils in the affected areas, Spain having experienced intense droughts over the last two years. This encouraged a phenomenon of runoff, with the earth proving incapable of absorbing all this water.
Furthermore, the Valencia region, the most affected by flooding, is characterized by numerous artificialized areas, where natural spaces have given way to concrete, which is completely impermeable.
There has been “uncontrolled urbanization poorly adapted to the natural characteristics of the territory” in recent years, which today “amplifies” the risks, underlines Pablo Aznar, researcher at the Socioeconomic Observatory of Floods and Drought (OBSIS) .
Densely populated area
The precipitation fell on heavily populated areas and therefore mechanically affected a large number of people.
The metropolitan area of Valencia (south-east), where the vast majority of deaths took place, has 1.87 million inhabitants. It is the third largest city in Spain.
Urban density “is a very important factor” in explaining the impact of these floods, underlines Pablo Aznar, for whom preparing cities for climatic disasters constitutes a “challenge” for the authorities.
Rush hour on the roads
An aggravating factor played into the terrible toll of these bad weather: the time at which they occurred. The bulk of the rain fell at the end of the day, at a time when many residents were on the road.
According to the authorities, many victims died in their cars, surprised by the rising waters while they were returning home, or in the street, after trying to climb trees or lampposts.
A situation that could have been avoided if these people had been warned in time to allow them to return home earlier, according to Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading (United Kingdom).
Lack of responsiveness from authorities
Aemet issued a “red alert” for the Valencia region on Tuesday morning, calling for “great caution” in the face of “extreme” danger. But the Civil Protection service only sent its telephone alert message after 8:00 p.m. inviting residents not to leave their homes.
The lack of caution among certain residents is also called into question: several admitted to having gone out despite the alert, explaining that they were not aware of the seriousness of the situation, citing too frequent alerts.
“There were failures in communication”, but there is undoubtedly a “shared responsibility”, believes Pablo Aznar, who points out a problem in the Spanish “risk culture”. “The collective mentality is not yet sufficiently adapted to new extreme phenomena,” he insists.
An analysis shared by Jorge Olcina, from the University of Alicante: “we are going to have to do much more to improve risk education in schools, but also for the entire population, so that they know how to act in the event of immediate risk.