Trapped by flood in Malaga: ‘I had to swim out of the window’

Francisco Muñoz, owner of land at the foot of the Guadalhorce River in Álora for 30 years, assures that “every ten years, the water takes its place.” “The river overflows and floods everything. It almost never rains here and the plots are sold. People come until the flood comes and everything is flooded,” admitted this former resident, who saw last Tuesday how some of his acquaintances had to be rescued by helicopter. “They had a caravan next door and they took it down from the roof with the helicopter, which passed over the pear trees, brushing against the branches, like another family further on,” recalls Muñoz, who has already witnessed several floods in Álora. first city to suffer the flood of the Guadalhorce river, which left them without water in their taps “This is the biggest problem “All the wells are full of mud, contaminated,” remarked Mayor Francisco Martín, nearby. of a construction company where there could have been a tragedy with a worker who was helping his colleagues, Miguel Osuna, when it started to rain, went to get the cars from the warehouse parking lot. his colleagues who had gone to work outside the city. “I was removing the vehicles when I saw the flood coming. I ran towards the road, over the bridge. It was in a minute and, when I turned around, all the cars were already floating,” said this worker among the destroyed cars. Standard Related News No HISTORICAL DATA LEAVES AT LEAST 92 DEAD IN VALENCIA B. L EchazarretaThe river in overflow continued to make Capital of Malaga, where it ended As it devastated the district Hipólito de Pizarra José Ruiz had just left his family at home, as well as the tenants of a second. house he owns on this citrus farm. “They called me and told me they couldn’t leave, that the house was surrounded by water. I couldn’t believe it. came here and, when I arrived, I couldn’t get in,” he emphasizes. His family had to be rescued from a terrace of the house, when the water reached almost four meters high. “The tenants of the other house climbed onto the roof of the citrus warehouse and the Civil Guard also took them out of there with the helicopter,” adds this neighbor, who puts the damage at more than 100,000. euros due to the loss of several cars. , vans, machines and trucks, but his family was able to leave the farm by flying with a harness attached to a cable. Another affected area was Cártama, where Silvia Mena was one of the last rescued by zodiac. “I came to take care of the animals, because I have several dogs, horses, chickens… Suddenly, I found myself up to my neck in water, trying to save the dogs. I went up to the roof of the prefab house and there they located me with a drone. I spent two hours on the roof until they took me out,” explains this woman whose neighbors saw their farms devastated. “My house is not there. He disappeared. It was an illusion, where he came with his family, but there is nothing left,” lamented Iván López. The flood continued to Doña Ana, a small neighborhood of Cártama, where Anuar El Kanfaui and Soraya García feared for their children. “The river was not high, but suddenly water started coming out of the plugs and out of the washing machine. from the house it was two meters. We climbed to the top and watched him climb the ladder. It was overwhelming,” said Soraya with her one and a half year old son in her arms. in Cártama In the Doña Ana neighborhood, the neighbors are used to flooding, so much so that they already build walls around the doors to prevent flooding, but the force of the water fills everything with mud every seven or eight years old TONY SAGAN It didn’t stop there: when the river flowed, the water was still inside and they couldn’t get out. “I had to swim out the window, open the door to the house and let the water flow out. “That’s how we were able to leave,” said Anuar, who is now being offered food and clothes for the children, after throwing most of his belongings in the trash. Here, they are also used to flooding. “It happens to us every seven or eight years,” explains Ana Cuesta, who, at 84, has already experienced several evictions in the neighborhood and who reports that she has no electricity or water in her home because of the disaster. . And it’s true that these neighbors are used to dealing with flooding. On Emilia Pardo Bazán Street, which overlooks the river, neighbors have made small walls at the doors to prevent the water from rising. This is how they minimized the damage. The flood reached them around 5:00 p.m. and when they saw that it was receding, they opened the “storm doors”. Ana Rebollo jumps over a small partition to enter her house and says that the arrival of this “big wave” was “sudden”. “It rose until 8 p.m. and fell around midnight,” he added. Accustomed to these floods, Claudia Pérez took refuge on the second floor of her house. “I saw the water rising and I started to get overwhelmed, I wanted to get out, but I couldn’t. We always see it going up and then down. “This is when we start to remove the mud,” said this neighbor who, like many others, was working to recover his homes after the umpteenth flood in this area of ​​Malaga. A flood which this time cost the life of one person.

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