“I was born here and I lost everything“: Teresa Gisbert's house no longer has a door and the memories she saved are piled up in a muddy street in Sedavi, near Valencia, a town ravaged by the floods that devastated the south-east of the Spain.
His broken voice resonates between the empty walls of his low house typical of the Valencian villages.
A dark mark more than a meter high on the wall of his living room testifies to the water level rising on Tuesday in his home located in the town of 10,000 inhabitants, about ten kilometers west of Valencia.
Teresa Gisbert, 62, and her son first settled on a raised terrace before taking refuge with a neighbor due to the extent of the bad weather, and claim not to have been warned in sufficient time.
“They told us Rain Alert, but they should have told us about flooding,” deplores this frail woman, who oscillates between tears and comforting words for her neighbors who are in bad shape.
“We had a very bad time. Thank you for the angels who brought us food, who helped us,” she said, pointing to the volunteers.
“It’s very hard”
Two of them, from Valencia, continue to help him empty the rooms of his home one by one, in which there are still objects covered in mud.
Her house being out of order, she and her son are staying with a friend. “I’m going there for repairs, because I don’t even have a place to sleep”confides the mother, her eyes misty.
Six days after the violent floods which affected the south-east of Spain, the provisional death toll for the province of Valencia alone stands at more than 210 deaths – out of a total of 217 victims in the south-east of Spain. 'Spain.
In the streets of Sedavi, objects recovered from gutted homes pile up.
Pepita Codina works to sweep away the remains of mud that have flooded the ground floor of her house. The water ravaged his kitchen, his living room and many family photos.
“Everything is to be thrown away” in the refrigerator, deplores this 66-year-old retiree. Nevertheless, she feels lucky to have escaped death with her husband by taking refuge upstairs in her house.
A few meters from his street, the body of a person swept away by the current was found and a neighbor is still missing.
Cars overturned, rubbish in every corner. José Ferrandis, 81, never imagined seeing Sedavi in this state of desolation.
“The problem is that it came suddenly,” he explains in reference to the rapid rise in water levels. His son “lost almost everything”he said, resigned.
Pepita Codina cannot forget the image of a lifeless woman whose body remained in the street for three days. “It’s very hard,” she whispers.
