Tens of thousands of Spaniards take to the streets to express their anger at flood management

Photo: Cesar Manso Agence France-Presse According to the government delegation in Valencia, the demonstration brought together “130,000 people”.

Alfons Luna – Agence France-Presse in Valencia

Posted at 4:30 p.m.

• Europe

“Murderers, murderers! »: Tens of thousands of people demonstrated their anger Saturday in Valencia against the political class for its management of the floods which left at least 220 dead in the south-east of Spain last week.

According to the government delegation in Valencia, the demonstration brought together “130,000 people.”

The participants met in end of the day on the large square in front of the town hall of Valencia to cover the kilometer that separates it from the seat of the regional government.

They demanded in particular “the resignation” of his President Carlos Mazón (Popular Party), but socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has not been spared criticism either.

Both men are accused by the victims of having underestimated the risks and poorly coordinated the relief efforts after the floods of October 29, which devastated nearly 80 municipalities.

For Julián García, 73, “Mazón's management has been indecent and he should resign. The Valencian government is responsible and has not wanted to ask what it could ask of the central government, which is also somewhat responsible,” believes the pensioner.

Ana de la Rosa, 30, regrets the “political wars when it was not the right time, because the citizens needed help and did not have it.” The archivist is demanding “justice” for what she calls “involuntary manslaughter.”

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Rallies also took place in several other Spanish cities, such as Madrid and Alicante.

In Valencia, some clashes broke out between protesters and police, an AFP journalist noted.

“Solo el pueblo salva el pueblo” (“Only the people save the people”): in Valencia, this slogan has become popular in conversations after the spontaneous wave of solidarity that was organized to compensate for the supposed errors of the authorities.

During the rally in Valencia that brought together all social classes, the grievances focused on Carlos Mazón, who had been targeted on Sunday in Paiporta, like the head of government and the sovereigns Felipe VI and Letizia, by insults and mud throwing – unprecedented images illustrating the exasperation in the devastated areas.

A leading figure in the Popular Party, Mr Mazón, a 50-year-old lawyer, is accused of being slow to react after the Spanish Meteorological Agency issued a red alert on the morning of 29 October.

Dozens of missing people

He is also accused of being absent for several hours after it had already started to rain and the emergency committee had met. Carlos Mazón defended himself by saying that he was having “a working lunch” in a restaurant in Valencia with a journalist, according to Spanish media.

Among the accusations also made by the victims, the fact that the entire population was not alerted via their mobile phones until the evening, when many areas were already submerged. The region's main emergency manager, Salomé Pradas, admitted on Thursday that she was unaware of the existence of this alert system, before retracting her statement.

In Spain, a highly decentralized country, disaster management is the responsibility of regional administrations, but the central government, which is responsible for issuing alerts via Aemet, can provide resources and even take control in extreme cases.

It is precisely this last point that motivates the criticism of the right-wing opposition, which accuses the head of the socialist government of having let the region sink for political calculations instead of taking control. Pedro Sánchez acted “in bad faith”, criticized Miguel Tellado, the PP spokesperson in parliament.

Sources close to the government, for their part, assure that they want to define in due time the possible responsibilities of each party and the possible failures in the management of the disaster, while affirming that the government has done everything it could do within the current institutional framework.

The authorities continued their search operations for the missing on Saturday, which are concentrated in Albufeira and the Valencia lagoon. Dozens of people are still being sought, according to the High Court of Justice of the Valencia region.