“Assassins!”: the king and the authorities violently attacked

Survivors of this week’s floods in Spain vented their anger at Spain’s political leaders during a visit by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia to the city most bereaved by the tragedy, which left at least 217 dead.

“Assassins! assassins!”, shouted the crowd gathered in Paiporta (a suburb of Valencia) against the socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the right-wing president of the Valencia region Carlos Mazón, throwing mud and various objects at the procession, according to AFP journalists on site.

A town of around 25,000 inhabitants, Paiporta, where at least 62 deaths have been recorded, is the locality most bereaved by the tragedy.

In the midst of extreme tension, the sovereigns, who were not targeted, received mud on their faces and on their clothes, noted an AFP journalist, an unprecedented situation in the entire history of the Spanish monarchy.

Impassive and dignified throughout this extraordinary episode, they stayed there for about an hour to talk to residents and try to calm their anger before leaving.

For their part, Pedro Sánchez and Carlos Mázon quickly left the scene, evacuated by protection services visibly very worried by what looked like a riot scene.

The hostility was in fact directed against Pedro Sánchez and Carlos Mazón, under fire from criticism since the floods that occurred overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in the region.

“Mazón resign!” demanded residents, who uttered insults and sang chants asking “where is Pedro Sánchez?”

The Valencia government is in the hot seat for sending a very late telephone alert message to residents on Tuesday evening, even though the weather services had placed the region on “red alert” in the morning. The authorities are also criticized for the lack of responsiveness in helping residents.

According to a latest report, 217 people died in the floods, including 213 in the Valencia region alone, three in Castile-la-Mancha, where the lifeless body of a sixty-year-old woman from Letur who went missing on Tuesday was discovered on Sunday morning, and one in Andalusia.

In Letur, in the province of Albacete, the body of the woman carried away by the raging waves was discovered twelve kilometers from the place of her disappearance, the government delegate in the region of Albacete said at a press conference. Castile-La Mancha, Pedro Antonio Ruiz Santos.

Among the victims of these floods are also two Chinese nationals, according to the Chinese embassy in Madrid. Two other Chinese nationals are missing.

The authorities expect the toll to rise. “There are still flooded ground floors or garages, basements and parking lots to be cleared and it is foreseeable that deceased people are in these spaces,” declared the Minister of Transport, Oscar Puente, in a message on X.

According to him, the toll has changed relatively little over the past 48 hours because the emergency services first explored “the more accessible areas”, located “on the surface”.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis said Sunday “pray for Valencia and other people in Spain who are suffering so much right now.”

On the ground, the population remains faced with a dramatic situation, while numerous transport and telecommunications infrastructures have been destroyed or put out of service. In many communities, piles of cars and muddy debris still litter the roadways.

“We’ve been cleaning for three days. Everything is covered in mud,” Helena Danna Daniella, owner of a bar-restaurant in Chiva, told AFP.

“It feels like the end of the world,” added this thirty-year-old, saying she was still in shock five days after the bad weather. People trapped in raging waves “were asking for help and there was nothing we could do (…) It drives you crazy. We are looking for answers and we cannot find them.”

Faced with this chaos, Mr. Sánchez announced on Saturday the sending of 5,000 additional soldiers to the region, bringing their numbers to 7,500, the “largest deployment of armed forces ever carried out in Spain in peacetime”, in his words. . In addition to these soldiers, there are 10,000 police officers and civil guards, responsible for restoring order.

According to the police, 20 new arrests took place on Saturday evening for acts of theft and looting, bringing to around a hundred the total number of people arrested for such offenses since Wednesday.