Billions in aid released but still a feeling of abandonment

The Spanish government unveiled on Tuesday an aid plan of 10.6 billion euros for tens of thousands of affected residents and businesses in the south-east of the country, a week after the dramatic floods which left at least 219 dead. .

The government will activate “direct aid for affected citizens and businesses, as we did during the pandemic, with the least possible paperwork and the greatest speed”, revealed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at the end of the Council of Ministers.

“What citizens want is to see their institutions not fighting among themselves, but working side by side,” he insisted, while the executive and the government of Valencia, the region most affected by floods, have been the subject of strong criticism for a week for their management of the disaster.

Assuring that the central state was alongside those affected, Pedro Sánchez unveiled a series of measures including direct aid for nearly “65,000 self-employed workers” and “30,000 businesses”.

He also announced that the government would cover “100%” of urgent expenses incurred by municipalities to help their citizens and clear the streets.

“The total investment of all these first measures” will exceed “10.6 billion euros”, explained Mr. Sánchez, specifying that he had “formally requested” Brussels for help from the European Solidarity Fund.

“There are still people to be located, homes and businesses are destroyed, buried under mud and many people are suffering from serious deprivations. We must continue to work,” he recalled.

According to the executive, electricity has been restored to “98% of homes” and “68%” of damaged telephone lines have been repaired. In addition, 40 kilometers of roads and 74 kilometers of railways were repaired.

On the ground, however, the situation remains very complicated, a week after the bad weather.

In Paiporta, a town of 25,000 inhabitants considered the epicenter of the tragedy, with more than 70 victims, drinking water is available again but the streets are still clogged with vehicles.

“We are better, but we are not doing well,” summarized Mayor Maribel Albalat on the public channel TVE. “We need machines, we need professionals to come and clean the streets, empty them, so people can take care of their homes,” she implored.

According to the reports provided by the national and local authorities, 219 people died in these bad weather, the worst natural disaster in the recent history of Spain, according to the executive. Among them, 214 died in the Valencia region, four in Castile-la-Mancha and one in Andalusia.

The courts have already authorized the handing over of “nearly fifty bodies” of the deceased to their families, the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia indicated on the social network X.

And the priority always remains the location of the missing, the precise number of whom has never been communicated.

The authorities are particularly concerned about the situation in many underground car parks, which are completely flooded and which have not yet been completely inspected.

In recent days, the personnel of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), which responds to natural disasters, have installed numerous pumps to begin evacuating the water.

In Picanya, near Valencia, “neighbors” are still missing, underlines mayor Josep Almenar, who, a week after the disaster, continues to “take out the city’s trash, take out the cars.”

In total, nearly 15,000 soldiers and police officers are deployed to help residents and carry out clearing operations, according to the executive, which specifies that this number has doubled in three days.

A deployment, however, considered insufficient by part of the population.

“It’s been six days, six days already, and it’s only the population that helps us, we can only count on the solidarity of the population,” laments Matilde Gregori, owner of a store, to AFP. devastated by floods in Sedavi, near Valencia.

“Where are the politicians? Where are they? Why didn’t they raise the alarm? Assassins. They are assassins,” she says, while taking part in an aid distribution.

This exasperation materialized on Sunday with an explosion of anger from residents against the King of Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the President of the Valencia region Carlos Mazón, during a visit to Paiporta, greeted with shouts from “Assassins!” and targeted by jets of mud and objects.