Spain: One week after the floods, cleaning and relief work still underway

“We are better, but we are not well”: a week after the floods that left at least 218 dead in Spain, cleaning and search operations continue on Tuesday in the devastated municipalities, to clear debris and vehicles piled up in the mud.

In Paiporta, a town of 25,000 inhabitants located in the suburbs of Valencia and considered the epicentre of the disaster, with more than 70 victims, drinking water is once again available to residents, but electricity has not yet been restored to all homes, Mayor Maribel Albalat summed up on Tuesday.

And while many volunteers equipped with shovels and brooms have once again converged on the devastated towns, elected officials are calling for professional equipment to clear the hundreds of cars still overturned on the roads.

“We need machines, we need professionals who come and clean the streets, empty them, so that people can take care of their homes,” Ms Albalat implored on public channel TVE.

In Paiporta, “100% of homes and 100% of businesses have been affected. We need companies to help us,” the mayor urged.

To cope with the enormous cost of the disaster, the regional government has already put on the table an envelope of 250 million euros, with multiple tax breaks and compensations and Parliament approved on Tuesday direct aid of 30 million euros to those affected by the damage.

The socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is expected to announce a series of measures for the disaster areas during the Council of Ministers, Spanish media also report.

A week after the devastating and historic floods, the provisional death toll stands at 218: 214 in the Valencia region alone, three in Castile-La Mancha and one in Andalusia.

The courts have already authorized the release of “nearly fifty bodies” of the deceased to their families, the Valencia High Court of Justice reported on the social network X.

And the priority remains the location of the missing, the precise number of whom has never been communicated.

– “Feeling of abandonment” –

The authorities are particularly concerned about the situation in many underground car parks, which are completely flooded and have not yet been fully inspected.

In recent days, the personnel of the Military Emergency Unit (UME), which intervenes in natural disasters, have installed numerous pumps to begin evacuating the water.

Divers managed to penetrate the underground parking lot of Bonaire, a large shopping center in Aldaia, a town of 31,000 inhabitants on the outskirts of Valencia, on Monday morning.

With a capacity of 5,700 spaces, almost half of which are underground, it raised many concerns and was regularly at the heart of “fake news” broadcast on social networks. But for the moment, the rescue services have not found any bodies there.

In Picanya, near Valencia, “neighbors” are still missing, emphasizes the mayor Josep Almenar, who, a week after the disaster, continues to “take out the city's trash, take out the cars.”

On Monday morning, the Spanish meteorological agency (Aemet) officially confirmed that the “meteorological crisis” situation had ended in the Valencia region.

Pile of debris in the streets of Aldaia, in the Valencia region, on November 5, 2024 © AFP – Cesar Manso

The crisis, however, is far from over.

“It's been six days, already six days, and only the population is helping us, we can only count on the solidarity of the population,” Matilde Gregori, owner of a store devastated by the floods in Sedavi, near Valencia, laments to AFP.

“The politicians, where are they? Where are they? Why didn't they raise the alarm? Murderers. They are murderers,” she says, while taking part in an aid distribution.

This exasperation materialized Sunday in an explosion of anger from residents against the King of Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the president of the Valencia region Carlos Mazón, during a visit to Paiporta, greeted rightly with cries of “Assassins!” and targeted by mud and objects.

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