The passage of a DANA through the peninsula and the Balearic Islands, which put nine communities on alert this Tuesday due to intense rains, storms and strong gusts of wind, left at least seven people missing in the province of Albacete and in the Valencian Community, as confirmed by the Delegation of the Community Council of Albacete to elDiario.es Castilla-La Mancha. Flooding caused by heavy rains also forced the interruption of high-speed train traffic between Valencia and Madrid.
The municipality of Albacete, Letur, is one of the main affected. There, a huge flood flooded the town, causing the disappearance of six people. Sources from the Provincial Council confirm that firefighters are working in the area, where strong hailstorms have also been recorded, along with other affected municipalities in the Sierra del Segura.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared in X that he was following “closely and with concern” the damage caused by the passage of DANA. Sánchez reported that all emergency services, civil protection, the Military Emergency Unit (UME), as well as members of the police and civil guard, were displaced by the storm. Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo expressed his “gratitude” to the emergency services. “My solidarity with those affected and my wish that they quickly find the missing,” he wrote in X.
Two of the missing people in Letur are two municipal employees whose trace was lost after their vehicle was swept away by the flood which crossed the urban area of the municipality on Tuesday. The Civil Guard confirmed that it was searching for them with the help, among other means, of drones equipped with thermal cameras.
The Provincial Delegation of Albacete warned that Letur was the locality “most affected” by the storm in the province. SEPEI firefighters moved seven vehicles and fifteen people towards the city, including the underwater rescue unit, present on site to “remediate” the consequences of the storm: people isolated in their homes, vehicles swept away, serious damage in infrastructure, or “totally flooded” streets.
The delegate of the Government of Castile-La Mancha in Albacete, Pedro Antonio Ruiz Santos, who visited the city, explained to the EFE agency that there are difficulties with telephone lines, part of the area urban area is without electricity and the Provincial Council had to transport tanks to compensate for the lack of drinking water.
As the Provincial Delegation of Albacete explains in a press release, the problem was not the rain that fell in the city, but in the head of the basin, where almost 200 liters per square meter were reached, this which caused the stream to fall. overflowed and the waterspout crossed the urban area.
Floods in the province of Valencia force the UME to intervene
The passage of the DANA through the province of Velència, with torrential rains in some areas, caused several floods which required the intervention of the Military Emergency Unit (UME). In addition, the Emergency Coordination Center has issued a special hydrological alert due to the increase in the flow of the Magro River, which could reach a thousand cubic meters per second downstream of the Forata reservoir (Yátova, Valencia) due to the accumulated water. precipitation, as warned by the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar.
This flow implies that significant overflows can occur in areas close to the river and, therefore, it is advisable to move the population away from areas close to the river and not to approach the banks of active rivers and ravines. The warning was notified to all municipalities bordering the Magro River – including Utiel, which has been experiencing flooding since this afternoon due to its overflow – and the Júcar River from Algemesí to its mouth in Cullera, according to the Generalitat emergencies.
Rail lines, flights affected and ports closed
The situation in Albacete has led to the suspension of traffic on the Valencia-Madrid high-speed line which crosses this province. Trains have been stopped at the Albacete crossroads since 5:54 p.m. due to the accumulation of water between the towns of Siete Aguas and Chiva following the flooding of the Torrent tunnel. Adif confirmed that since then no trains have departed from València Joaquín Sorolla station.
A high-speed train (AVE) traveling between Malaga and Madrid with 291 passengers on board suffered a “bogie” – a part of the train whose axles are attached to the wheels – left the track from the front cabin as it passed through the town of Álora, in Malaga, where heavy rains have been recorded in recent hours, without any injuries.
Adif also reported that the accumulation of water in the railway infrastructure has forced the suspension of traffic on the Valencia-Gandia-Xàtiva route, in the suburban core of Valencia, and that the medium-distance trains that operate in these stations are also affected. .
In addition, since Tuesday afternoon, the train service between Barcelona and Valencia has been interrupted due to the fall of a vehicle on the infrastructure between Nules and Les Palmes, on the Sagunt-Castelló route, and strong storms in the area, the organization reported.
Aena reported the diversion of six Valencia-bound flights to other airports and the cancellation of three other departures. The Port Authority, for its part, has also closed the ports of Valencia and Sagunt.
The effects of DANA in Andalusia
The Community of Andalusia issued this Tuesday an orange warning in the provinces of Almería, Granada and Málaga due to precipitation which will vary between 30 and 50 liters per square meter in 1 hour and also an orange warning in Almería due to heavy storms; In Córdoba and Jaén, the yellow alert persists for precipitation of 20 liters in one hour. In Malaga, the intense rains caused multiple incidents, such as the derailment of a high-speed train, which caused no injuries, while the flooding caused by the flooding of the river in the Guadalhorce valley took away people. dozens of vehicles. The number 112 brought the rain warning for the Costa del Sol and the Guadalhorce region to the red level until three in the afternoon.
In Almería, the storms caused great damage in their path, notably in the municipality of El Ejido, where heavy hail the size of “ping-pong balls” fell which would have affected around 11,300 hectares according to the Union of Small Farmers and Winners (UPA). In total, more than 240 emergency situations due to the storm have already been recorded in eastern Andalusia, with incidents including flooded basements, basements, garages and roads.
