end of the red alert for bad weather in the south and east of the country, without new victims

The Spanish State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) lifted its red alert for bad weather in the south and east of the country on Thursday, November 14, at the end of a night marked by heavy precipitation, for which the authorities did not have not reported any new victims at this stage.

“The worst of this second depression is over”declared Aemet, which downgraded to yellow level its alert for the province of Malaga, in Andalusia (South), and for the region of Valencia (South-East).

This new meteorological episode has revived the fears of the victims, two weeks after an exceptional Mediterranean storm caused deadly floods. This, which occurred on October 29, left 223 dead, most of them in the Valencia region.

Aemet thus issued a red alert on Wednesday for “extreme danger”due to this new cold drop, an isolated high altitude depression quite common in autumn on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The organization had also placed the coast near Valencia on red alert for rain. “The danger is extreme. Avoid traveling. River overflows and flooding may occur »he warned.

According to Aemet, torrential rains did indeed fall during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, with accumulations of 110 liters of water per square meter (110 millimeters) recorded in Alcudia de Veo, in the hinterland of Valencia, and 88 liters (88 millimeters) in Chiva, a village already hit by floods at the end of October.

This rainfall forced emergency services to carry out new rescue operations, both in Andalusia and in the Valencia region, and led to road cuts. But no new victims have been reported by the authorities.

“The night was complicated (…). We’ve never seen so much rain.”testified on the public television channel TVE Jordi Mayor, mayor of Cullera, a seaside town located south of the city of Valencia, specifying that streets were still “impractical” Thursday morning.

Research continues

According to Aemet, five provinces remain placed on orange alert on Thursday: three in Andalusia (Cádiz, Huelva and Seville) and two in the Valencian region (Alicante and Valencia). In this last sector, the heavy rains that fell during the night affected the search operations for the still missing people, who have been concentrating for several days around the waterways and on the coast, at the river mouths.

Thursday morning, the latter resumed, as did the work of clearing and restoring the infrastructure. Soldiers deployed on the ground “continue to work” to allow “a return to normal” residents, the Military Emergency Unit (UME) said on Thursday.

In anticipation of this new bad weather, the authorities announced on Wednesday a series of measures to prevent the disaster scenario of October 29 from happening again. In the Valencia region, traffic restrictions were implemented in around a hundred municipalities, where school lessons were also suspended on Thursday. The return to circulation of trains between Madrid and Valencia, scheduled for Thursday morning, has for its part been postponed.

The president of the Valencia region interviewed on Friday

In Malaga, where several roads were flooded and air traffic was severely disrupted on Wednesday, the metro was closed and train traffic towards Madrid was suspended. More than 4,200 people were also evacuated “preventively”according to authorities.

Initially scheduled for Wednesday and delayed due to bad weather, the launch of the Billie Jean King Cup tennis will however take place on Thursday. “Prevention is better than cure, we saw it in Valencia”justified the conservative president of the Andalusia region, Juan Manuel Moreno, on Wednesday evening. On X, he called on residents on Thursday morning to stay “cautious” until the end of the bad weather.

Due to these new rains, the hearing scheduled for Thursday at the parliament of the Generality of Valencia of its president Carlos Mazón, supposed to explain his management of the disaster, was postponed until Friday, according to a spokesperson for the institution.

The conservative leader has been the subject of strong criticism for two weeks because of his management considered chaotic of the consequences of the floods of October 29. This indignation gave rise to massive demonstrations on Saturday November 9, the largest of which brought together 130,000 people in Valencia.