The family of an Irish woman living in Spain’s Valencia commune were lucky to escape floodwater that destroyed their basement garage.
Christine Connolly, who lives in a town south of Valencia called Massanassa, lost the family car, motorbike and many other family possessions in the floods that devastated the region on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week.
Fortunately, she and her Spanish partner and their two daughters live on the fourth floor of an apartment block in Massanassa.
“It’s the reason why we still have a home. Anybody who has a ground floor apartment or business saw it destroyed,” she said.
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“There was a red alert for bad weather but it wasn’t specified about how bad it could be.”
Yet no rain fell in the town she lived in. Instead, it was inundated with floodwaters from further north as Valencia experienced a year’s worth of rainfall in a few hours. Massanassa is less than 7km from Paiporta, which suffered the worst of the flooding.
Ms Connolly, who is originally from Navan, Co Meath, has been living in Valencia for six years. “Normally we get a bit of rain this time of year. It can get a bit torrential. It usually finishes fairly quickly.
“The crazy thing is that we suffered most of the flooding, but we had no rain at all,” she said.
“But they don’t have shores like we have at home. The land is very dry so doesn’t absorb moisture. They have changed the layout of the river in Valencia.”
Villages such as Massanassa were flooded after an artificial river bed that is usually dry quickly became inundated with water from other rivers that quickly burst their banks.
“Twenty minutes from us it is perfectly normal. Here it is a disaster.”
Ms Connolly said no outside help came to them for 24 hours after the disaster occurred, and the blame for the disaster response is being laid at the door of the Valencian commune president Carlos Mazón.
“It was his decision not to send in the military for two days after the disaster. For the first day all we could see was helicopters in the sky. Nobody came here for 24 hours.”
As the death toll from the floods climbed to 217, the meteorological agency on Sunday again issued a red alert, forecasting further heavy rain in the area, and mayors from the affected municipalities pleaded with officials to send help.
The Valencia region is grappling with the aftermath of the ferocious floods that rank as the deadliest in Spain’s modern history. The number of people missing remains unknown.
Hundreds of people have heckled Spain’s king Felipe and queen Letizia, as well as the prime minister and the regional leader of Valencia – throwing mud and shouting “murderers” – as the group attempted an official visit to one of the municipalities hardest hit by the deadly floods.
The scenes playing out in Paiporta on Sunday laid bare the mounting sense of abandonment among the devastated areas and the lingering anger over why an alert urging residents not to leave home on Tuesday was sent after the flood waters began surging.
Much of the fury appeared to be directed at the elected officials, as calls rang out for the resignation of Pedro Sánchez, the country’s prime minister, and Mr Mazón, Valencia’s regional leader.
The king insisted on continuing the visit, at one point meeting a man who wept on his shoulder.
He was also confronted by a young man who told him that “you’ve abandoned us”, asking why residents had been left on their own to grapple with the aftermath of the deadly floods. “You’re four days too late,” he told the king.
Spain’s royal palace later said that the king’s plans to visit a second hard-hit town in the region had been postponed. – additional reporting: Guardian
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