Alfafar (Valencia)When he is told of his friend's death, Vicente hides behind some cars and cries. This story, experienced live by this journalist five minutes after arriving in Alfafar, together with the victim Paiporta, reflects the drama that is being experienced in the Valencian Community four days after the floods. The story begins with a local police officer from Salou who is guarding a police cordon. He arrived two days ago as a volunteer. Protects an action of the Militarized Emergency Unit (UME). With a pump they are emptying the water from a two-story underground parking lot. Customers of a Consum supermarket could park in the first. In the second, the neighbors. On Tuesday it was covered with water in the blink of an eye, and this Saturday they were able to access the first floor.
The omens were not good. This Friday, when the UME began to empty the subway, several people showed up saying that their relatives were shopping that day at the Consumption and that they knew nothing about them. The bad omens are confirmed when members of the Civil Guard put on a diving suit. There are deaths. They come in and stay for an hour. They say that the water reaches their knees and that the second floor is inaccessible, which is still completely flooded. There are fifty places per floor.
Vicente looks at him from a distance. “I can't stop thinking,” he explains. In his head he replays everything that happened on Tuesday in that parking lot. He, a regular resident, parks his car on the second floor, the one reserved for residents. “It wasn't even seven in the afternoon and no one told us to stay home. I looked at the sky and, since it wasn't raining, I went to take the car,” he says. He was at the beginning of the exit ramp, about to leave, when the waterspout came. “The car jumped and hit the roof.”
At 64 years old, Vicente climbed out of the window and grabbed onto the cables next to him. “I was floating, I could only get my head out of the water and I was touching the ceiling,” he remembers. “If I hadn't grabbed the cables I would have died,” he says. The horizon was the sign that marked the maximum height of the cars: if it reached there it could survive. He shouted: “Help, help.” And I heard voices from the drivers ahead of me on the ramp, who had managed to get out. Finally, he succeeded. “I have been born again,” he celebrates.
death procession
But Vicente laments shortly after: “I was the last one to leave, no one else could.” At that moment we already know that there is at least one body inside the parking lot. The next steps are a procession of death. Red Cross brings some blankets. They are not due to the hope of finding survivors, but because of the Civil Guard troops who have dived inside. The neighbors come out to their balconies and National Police agents ask them to come in. The street is full of obstacles covered in mud. The police yell at the volunteers: they don't know it, but they are clearing a way for the funeral services to enter.
Vicente is convinced that the body they found is that of a friend of his. They are neighbors, and their car was right behind his, at the beginning of the ramp, ready to leave. “But no one else came out behind me,” he reiterates. This man (ARA prefers not to say his name because the death has not yet been communicated to the family) has been missing since Tuesday, and Vicente insists that he clearly saw him queuing behind him to leave.
The forensics arrive. They arrived on Wednesday from Murcia, they admit that they don't stop and that there are still many places like the Consumo parking lot to explore. They say that the main causes of death from cold gout are drowning and ingesting mud. And one of the main problems encountered is that, to get from one place to another, there are many queues.
The Civil Guard divers leave. The head of the unit talks with the forensics and the scientific police. Make the number one with your finger. When they finish, the first thing Vicente does is approach him. Bad news, even if it is assumed, is still fatal when it is corroborated. The agent politely confirms the discovery, but asks him, please, not to say anything to anyone, as the family must find out through official means. There is still an entire plant invaded by water. That's when Vicente hides behind some cars and mourns the death of his friend.
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