Several days after floods which left at least 220 dead in the south-east of Spain, and while the country is experiencing new floods, tens of thousands of people marched on Saturday November 9 in the streets of Valencia to denounce the chaotic management of floods by the authorities. According to the government delegation in Valencia, the demonstration brought together “130,000 people”.
The demonstrators met at the end of the day on the large square in front of the Valencia town hall to walk the kilometer that separates it from the headquarters of the regional government. In particular, they demanded “resignation” of its president, Carlos Mazón (Popular Party, right), but the socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, was not spared from criticism either. The two men are accused by the victims of having underestimated the risks and poorly coordinated relief after the floods of October 29, which devastated nearly eighty municipalities.
Rallies also took place in several other Spanish cities, such as Madrid and Alicante. In Valencia, some clashes broke out between demonstrators and the police, noted a journalist from Agence France-Presse (AFP). «Only the people save the people» (“Only the people save the people”): in Valencia, this slogan became popular in conversations after the spontaneous wave of solidarity which was organized to compensate for the supposed errors of the authorities.
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Unpreparedness and slow reaction
In Valencia, grievances focused on Carlos Mazón, who was targeted on Sunday in Paiporta, like the head of government and the sovereigns Felipe VI and Letizia, with insults and mud throwing – unprecedented images illustrating the exasperation in devastated areas. Figure of the Popular Party, Mr. Mazón, a 50-year-old lawyer, is accused of having been slow to react even though the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet) had issued a red alert on the morning of October 29.
He is also accused of having been absent for several hours when it was already starting to rain and the emergency committee had met. Carlos Mazón defended himself by assuring that he participated in “a working lunch” in a Valencia restaurant with a journalist, according to Spanish media.
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Among the accusations also made by the victims, the fact that the entire population was only alerted via cell phones in the evening, when many areas were already submerged. The region's main emergency manager, Salomé Pradas, admitted on Thursday that she was unaware of the existence of this alert system, before retracting her statement.
Still dozens of people missing
In Spain, a very decentralized country, disaster management is the responsibility of regional administrations, but the central government, responsible for issuing alerts via Aemet, can provide resources and even take a hand in extreme cases. It is precisely this last point which motivates the criticism of the right-wing opposition, which accuses the head of the socialist government of having allowed the region to sink through political calculations instead of regaining control. Pedro Sánchez acted “in bad faith”criticized Miguel Tellado, the spokesperson for the PP in parliament.
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Sources close to the government assure for their part that they want to define in due time the possible responsibilities of each person and the possible failures in the management of the disaster, while affirming that the government has done everything it could do within the current institutional framework. .
The authorities continued their search operations for the missing on Saturday, which are concentrated in Albufeira and the Valencia lagoon. Dozens of people are still wanted, according to the higher court of justice of the Valencia region.
