Two hundred twenty-nine deaths and destruction on a scale hitherto unseen in Spain during peacetime. Such was the result of the torrential rains that lashed Valencia province on October 29, 2024, triggering a series of flash floods that wiped out entire towns.
One year later, the disaster has had contradictory political effects. The regional president, Carlos Mazón of the conservative Partido Popular (PP), resigned last week over his disastrous management of the emergency, which contributed to the death toll. Over this same period, poll ratings for far-right party Vox have increased. The contradiction: Vox downplays the effects of the climate crisis and opposes policies to address it.
The catastrophe was the result of a fatal combination of an extreme weather event, reckless urban development, and political ineptitude that could lead to criminal charges. DANAs (isolated high-level depressions, a meteorological technical term that has entered common usage in Spain) are part of the climate in eastern Spain — but their intensity has increased with the climate crisis. The one last October 29 was so intense it was statistically a 1-in-1,000-year event.
The hardest-hit area was Horta Sud, a largely working-class area on the outskirts of Valencia with a very high population density, much of it built on floodplains. The area is crisscrossed by numerous barrancos — dry riverbeds for most of the year that turned into immense torrents that day, covering towns with up to three meters of water and mud, and sweeping away everything in their path, including over a hundred thousand cars reduced to scrap metal. The effects were more akin to a tsunami than a river overflowing.
Yet also decisive was the ineptitude of the regional government, which is responsible for emergency services. In the affected towns, alongside candles memorializing the dead, one can still see banners with the text “20:11. Neither forgotten nor forgiven.” This refers to the time, 8:11 p.m., when…
Auteur: Pablo Castaño
