Robert Colero, a 48-year-old farmer, was scheduled to explain to the Monde the ravages of Valencia's floods on its fields. For almost two hours, this man could not escape the story of the hellish night of October 29, during which he and his wife believed they died in the flood of the Poyo, in the district of La Torre, in the southern suburbs of Valencia.
Trapped in their car which they parked on a sidewalk when the water began to rise, they escaped through the sunroof of the vehicle, after seeing people being swallowed up by a 3 meter wave which covered the tunnel they were near. They swam, as best they could, then floated, clinging to clumps of straw, before miraculously climbing onto a pole where they ended up being rescued by firefighters, after three hours spent in water. “thick, brown, cold”hearing the cries of the neighbor's five children, refugees on the roof of their house.
“Even though I know now that these kids, whom I watched grow up, are alive, these cries, I can’t get them out of my head”confides the man, his eyes clouded by this nightmarish memory. Its 18 hectares of market gardening were destroyed. His family home, in which six generations grew up, was devastated. His tractors and cars are out of order. And he tries to hold on, grateful to have the “nerves on edge”. In the garage of the building where he lives, the bodies of 11 people who died in the floods, including 3 children, were recovered. In total, he knows 26 of the 222 deaths and 4 missing caused by the floods.
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