Spain: Valencia coastline on red alert, two weeks after deadly floods

“The danger is extreme”: two weeks after floods that have devastated the south-east of Spain, the Spanish Meteorological Agency has placed Wednesday evening the coast of the Valencia region was put on red alert, hit by new torrential rains.

“Avoid travel. Rivers may overflow and flooding may occur,” Aemet warned. The red alert, the maximum possible level, was activated at 9:00 p.m. (20:00 GMT) and will remain in effect until Thursday at 12:00 p.m. (11:00 GMT).

Up to 180 millimeters of rain could fall in twelve hours on the Valencia coast, according to Aemet. This led the authorities to issue traffic restrictions and suspend classes on Thursday in more than a hundred municipalities, some already affected by the floods of October 29, which left at least 223 dead.

Only travel for “cases of force majeure” is authorized, announced on X the conservative president of the Valencia region Carlos Mazón, widely criticized for his lack of responsiveness and his chaotic management of the floods of October 29. These measures are “exceptional” and aim to “ensure the safety of people”, he justified.

Officers stand amidst debris in the rain in Paiporta, south of Valencia, eastern Spain, on November 13, 2024 © AFP – JOSE JORDAN

Due to torrential rain, rail traffic between Barcelona and Valencia has been suspended, while the resumption of trains on the Madrid-Valencia line, scheduled for Thursday morning, has been postponed, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The red alert corresponds to meteorological phenomena “of exceptional intensity”, presenting “a very high level of risk for the population”, according to Aemet.

– Preventive evacuations –

Due to this new “cold drop”, an isolated high-altitude depression quite common in autumn on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, the meteorological agency has also placed the Andalusian province of Malaga (south) on red alert, until Thursday 08:00 (07:00 GMT).

“Today, Malaga is paralyzed,” said the president of the Andalusia region, Juan Manuel Moreno, during a trip to Seville. “Prevention is better than cure, we saw it in Valencia,” he insisted.

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In the city, where several roads were flooded, the metro was closed, the train line to Madrid was suspended and several flights were canceled or diverted. More than 4,200 people were also evacuated “preventatively,” according to the authorities.

In this seaside resort popular with tourists, the bad weather also led to the postponement until Friday of a match between Spain and Poland in the Billie Jean King Cup women's tennis tournament, which was to be played on Wednesday afternoon.

“Everything is going well since we were warned last night,” Ida Maria Ledesma Martin, a resident of Campanillas, near Malaga, assured AFP. “This morning, around 10:00, police officers went through the streets to warn everyone, the deployment is very good and I think it is not exaggerated at all.”

The red alert issued during the day for the province of Tarragona, in the northeast of the country, has been downgraded to orange level.

– Makeshift barricades –

In Paiporta, a suburb of Valencia considered the epicenter of the October 29 disaster, residents had set up makeshift barricades with bags of earth in front of the doors of houses as early as Wednesday morning, fearing, in particular, that the sewers still clogged with mud would overflow.

A flooded street in Alora, near Malaga, after heavy rains in southern Spain, October 29, 2024 © AFP – JORGE GUERRERO

These new rains have affected the search operations for the 17 people still missing, concentrated mainly around waterways and on the coast, at the mouths of the rivers.

“The sea search has been compromised by the sea storm,” Rosa Tourís, spokeswoman for Cecopi, the Valencia emergency committee, told the press. “After this weather event, the tides will be reassessed to determine the search areas,” she added.

As a precaution, several municipalities in the region had asked the thousands of volunteers who come every day to help residents clear the streets not to go to the disaster areas on Wednesday. Alerts were also issued on phones.

Cleaning the streets of Paiporta after devastating floods in the Valencia region, November 10, 2024 in Spain © AFP – JOSE JORDAN

The Valencia authorities had been strongly criticized for having sent this warning message late on October 29. Outrage at the authorities led to massive protests on Saturday, the largest of which gathered 130,000 people in Valencia.

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