Floods in Spain: nearly 3.8 billion euros in additional aid, reconstruction of the Valencia region will take time

More than 220 people have died after torrential rain caused catastrophic flooding in Valencia's southern suburbs in late October. These funds are in addition to the 10.6 billion euros in aid announced last week.

“There are still streets to clean, a lot of infrastructure to repair and above all, a lot of lives, a lot of homes and a lot of businesses that need to get back to normal.”Pedro Sánchez told journalists after a council of ministers.

The aid package, which includes 110 new measures, extends support to renting families and includes an envelope of 500 million euros for clearing the disaster area and 200 million euros for farmers. A 12-month mortgage relief for the most vulnerable households has also been added, Pedro Sánchez said, in addition to the one-year moratorium announced last week.

The Prime Minister also indicated that the government would allocate 150 housing units in or near the disaster areas and that 25 million euros would be spent on the purchase of houses.

Pushed to resign

After the floods which hit Spain, political leaders are under fire from criticism. The demonstration on Saturday November 9 reflects the anger of residents governed by a party which was elected thanks to an alliance with VOX, whose denialist position on climate change is known.

“Mazon resign!”. This is the slogan chanted by tens of thousands of demonstrators this Saturday in Valencia to denounce the government's mismanagement of the DANA of the century.

If the criticism focuses on the policy pursued by the president of the Region, Carlos Mazon, of the Popular Party (PP), it is because the latter is singled out for having stifled the project of the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE ), developed by the previous government and one of whose missions was precisely to provide an effective response to climate disasters.