2024-10-30 13:46:00
From Rabat, Morocco, Emmanuel Macron expressed his “solidarity” with the Spaniards and France’s “availability” in terms of aid.
Spanish police have released eye-opening aerial images of the Valencia region and say they are continuing their work with other emergency services.
Spain’s Aemet meteorological agency put the Valencia region on red alert on Tuesday evening and declared the second-highest alert level in parts of Andalusia, warning that the rains will continue until at least Thursday.
The Valencia region and the Spanish Mediterranean coast in general regularly experience, in autumn, this phenomenon known as “gota fria” (“cold drop”), an isolated depression at high altitude, which reacts with a warm air mass at Mediterranean and which causes sudden and very violent rains, sometimes for several days.
The hashtag #DANA has appeared on social networks, an acronym used mainly by the Spanish to designate an altitudinal depression of non-tropical origin.
“The situation is disastrous […] I had never seen something like this,” Consuelo Tarazona, mayor of Horno de Alcedo, a town on the outskirts of Valencia, told Spanish public television. The rise in water levels was “monstrous,” he said. “We were suddenly flooded, without being able to notify the neighbors.”
Authorities have asked residents not to travel by road, while the central government has set up a crisis unit.
The King of Spain Felipe VI is “devastated by the latest news” on the flood, writes the Spanish royal house in a message on the social network [désormais plus de 60]. Strength, courage and all the necessary support for the people affected,” adds the monarch.
In a short televised speech, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez gave his support to the families of the victims and those affected. “We will not leave you alone,” he promised, asking residents to remain vigilant.
“We cannot consider this devastating episode over,” he further underlined. There are “flooded communities, roads and tracks cut, bridges broken by the violence of the waters”. The phenomenon also affects the regions of La Mancha, Murcia and Andalusia.
According to the latest report from the Spanish authorities, this cataclysm caused at least 62 deaths. But in the Valencia region many villages are still cut off from the world. The national newspaper The country“dozens of people” are still missing.
Follow with us live the catastrophic and deadly floods that have hit south-eastern Spain since Tuesday evening.
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