“Victor regained his footing and carried the boys in his arms. But then he realised he no longer had them. The water took everything in its path,” said Jonathan Perez, next-door neighbour of the Matias family, while speaking to the BBC. The family lost their two boys, Ruben, 3, and Izan, 5, to the devastating flash floods which hit the Valencia region of Spain.
On 29 October 2024, torrential rainfalls, causing flash floods, hit southern and eastern Spain in regions including the Costa Del Sol, Malaga, and Valencia in the east as reported by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
According to Meteorologists, the floods are being attributed to a natural phenomenon called DANA where a cold air front meets the Mediterranean’s warmer waters, causing intense rainfall. This phenomenon is said to aggravate in the wake of warmer seas and increasing temperatures due to the tight grip of climate change over the Mediterranean.
This record-breaking deluge along with instantaneous floods having hit the residential and business areas of these Spanish coastal cities has led to 224 casualties with 13 still missing and massive economic disruption which is yet to be fully calculated by the battered economy.
“If we talk about the total cost, we are looking at 25 to 30 billion dollars but we don’t have a reliable figure as of now,” says Jose Vincente Morata, President of the Valencia Chamber of Commerce, while speaking to Al Jazeera.
The numbers on the rain gauge have taken scientists and meteorologists by surprise with Turis, an upstream town from Valencia breaking the national record of rainfall in a day with 771 mm.
Many places like Chiva, a municipality in Valencia, and Jerez in southwestern Spain have received 491mm and 701mm respectively – amounting to a year’s worth of rainfall in just one day, according to the data released by the AEMET- Agencia Estatal de Meteorological.
Within the first few days of the now-receded floods, the death toll rose to more than 220 along with innumerable missing. The survivors of the deadly torrents of water were without power, transportation, food, and in some cases, their houses.
Lourdes María García, a civilian, and her three-month-old baby were crushed to death with the pressure of water mounting on her car, causing it to submerge, as reported by The Associated Press.
Hundreds of civil and military emergency workers have been deployed across towns conducting search operations, with the looming fear of the certain rise in death toll which has already soared to an all-time high.
Paiporta, a Spanish municipality in Valencia, once a green riverbed, succumbed to the muddy debris as the citizens watched expansive rivers of mud-colored water sweeping away cars and street lights while local plazas and other establishments drowned. “Everything is destroyed,” said Cardona Teruel, speaking to The Guardian.
Hundreds of staff members were stranded in an IKEA store and the Bonaire shopping mall in Valencia as dangerously high floodwaters engulfed the area. In a video shared on social media, one staff member remarked, "The people who kept us here working, without closing, are our supervisors."
The employers' reckless approach in these establishments reflects their profit-driven, capitalistic priorities. Forcing staff to face undue risks in dangerous conditions underscores a glaring lack of responsibility and prudence toward their workforce. Former minister Alberto Garzón noted, “Making easy economic profit and the drive to attract tourists prevailed over an understanding of the risks.”
Out of the 213 deaths reported in Valencia, 62 were confirmed in Paiporta. As people saw their loved ones encountering death in a split-second because of the massive jolt of the floodwaters, they blamed the town administration as there had been no official alert. “There was no warning,” said the town’s mayor, Maribel Albalat.
This is one of the many instances of the lapses in disaster management and mishandling of this deadly calamity. Dozens of people from the Valencia region of Spain told Reuters about the severely delayed warning signals and alarms, leaving them with no time in hand to procure any of their belongings and rush to a nearby safe zone.
Emergency planning for any natural disaster can be categorized into three phases: before (preparedness), during (response), and after (recovery), as discussed by Eliana Harrigan, a research scholar at Imperial College London.
Spain has an ES-Alert System for instant weather alerts, which has been in operation since 2023. It is designed to warn the citizens of natural disasters but can be operationalized in case of terrorism as well.
According to the regional government of Valencia, the alerts are active on every citizen’s device by default even if the device is set to ‘do not disturb’. The main point of contention in the case of the recent floods remains to be the promptness of the alert system, and how early or late the warning was dispatched. Citizens complained of getting the alert “Just after 8 pm, after an hour with water up to their neck and swallowing mud” as covered by the Time Magazine in their report.
In response to the authorities’ lax approach towards the recent floods, hundreds of people came out to protest in Valencia demanding the resignation of their regional head Carlos Mazon, President of the Valencian Government. Spanish news agency Efe covered the protest that took place on 10th November. Over 130,000 people took to the streets with protestors chanting “we are stained with mud, you are stained with blood.”
The protest was a means to convey public frustration and disappointment with the regional administration. Valencia’s mayor, Maria Jose Catala, posted pictures of broken windows, and fires being started while commenting that “Vandalism is not the solution.”
The frustration and despair of flood victims quickly turned into an outpouring of anger. During a visit to flood-stricken areas in Valencia, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia faced the brunt of citizens’ rage, with mud and eggs thrown in protest. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also encountered similar demonstrations of public discontent in other parts of Spain. As the crowd’s frustrations intensified, the royal couple and the prime minister were escorted to safety, underscoring the growing sense of outrage among those affected.
“I’m just 16,” one boy, Pau, told the BBC through tears. “We’re helping – and the leaders do nothing. People are still dying. I can’t stand this anymore.”
It's also being discussed that Spain’s National Meteorological Office (AEMET) issued a red weather warning for Valencia on 29 October. However, the regional leader’s delayed 12-hour response and the administration's failure to send timely alerts to residents’ phones have drawn widespread public criticism.
Political leaders have cited the regional governments’ failure to coordinate with the central government as the main reason behind the extreme havoc wreaked by the flood in terms of casualties and economic loss to the people.
On 15th November, people in Valencia woke up to Mazon admitting to “mistakes” committed by them in botching the country’s deadliest flood crisis. "I'm not going to deny mistakes," Mazon told the regional parliament in an address, adding he was "not going to shirk any responsibility,” as reported by The New York Times.
Paiporta, a Spanish municipality severely hit by the floods has a People’s Party-led regional government as opposed to the socialist-led government at the centre.
While both are being blamed for mishandling the situation, the far-right regional government has held the central government and the AEMET responsible for the immense lapse in communication of flood alerts. Recriminations are flying over social media platforms with the ongoing tussle between the regional and central governments.
Experts emphasized that effectively managing a large-scale crisis like this calls for close collaboration between the regional and national governments. Although each government level has its specific responsibilities, the regional government is anticipated to take the lead when it comes to disseminating disaster alerts.
"It is the responsibility of the autonomous community to issue public alerts and assess risks to the population," said Pablo Simón, a political science professor at Carlos III University in Madrid, in an interview with Euronews.
National leader of the People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, challenged the information given by AEMET and asserted that the central government was responsible for not keeping his party updated on events. He stated, “I wouldn’t ask the central government for more cooperation, I would ask it for any cooperation.”
Alongside, the far right seems to have taken an undue advantage of the situation to bolster its political position. In the initial days of the flooding, the social media was flooded with conspiracy theories, such as claims that the storm was a “meteorological attack” by the Moroccan government and false information aimed at sparing the Valencian regional government any accountability for the disaster.
While the apology by Mazon has been welcomed by a distressed citizenry, critics have brought into question the efficacy of the Valencia region’s alert system and disaster management relief such as food and water, amidst the complaint of many citizens who had to rely on volunteers for these essentials.
When it comes to natural disasters, the government’s response is required to be preemptive. Government agencies at the regional, state, and central levels often keep a check on their preparedness for adverse situations like these. An editorial in Politico exposed the Spanish Government’s unpreparedness and lack of communication infrastructure to coordinate the first waves of the flood.
In response to deadly floods, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von Der Leyen, urged the European Union to take note of the Spanish case as a “harrowing reminder” of the dramatic reality of climate change.
The European Commission further placed emphasis on how this crisis exposed the unpreparedness of Spain and the entirety of Europe. While the country overcomes the massive disruption caused to it by the deluge, Spanish leaders at the latest Conference of Parties (COP29), held in Baku, Azerbaijan, brought to the notice the Valencian tragedy.
The Spanish Transport Ministry has launched a 24.8 million euro package to cover the first emergency repairs to roads and rail infrastructure damaged by the severe flooding. Additionally, the European Investment Bank (EIB)’s has released a 900 million euro initial financing package to support recovery and reconstruction.
Further, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced almost 2.3 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in new aid for the country’s flood stricken regions, according to Euronews. The Package includes direct payments of 20,000 to 60,000 euro to owners of damaged homes, small businesses and freelance workers. In addition to this, the Spanish government has also requested aid from the European Union solidarity fund.
The recently witnessed inundation by Spain’s Mediterranean coast accompanied by flash floods was the most catastrophic since 1957. This extreme weather event put to test not only their administration’s disaster management infrastructure but also gave a subtle idea into how the region is lacking climate mitigation strategies. What appeared to be a regular cycle of floods and draughts now has now taken the form of an aggravated climate crisis which needs serious foresight.
Edited by Veda Rodewald
Aashi Sharma (she/her) is a student of law at the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab and a writer at Political Pandora.
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Keywords:
Spain Flash Floods 2024, Valencia Flood Disaster, Mediterranean Climate Crisis, DANA Weather Phenomenon, Record Rainfall Spain, Disaster Management Failures, Flood Casualties Spain, Valencia Protest Flood Response, Spanish Government Accountability, Climate Change Impact, Europe
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