“No one came, not police, not firefighter, not elected officials. “We are all alone”
Pallas. Brooms. In the southern suburb of Valencia, greatly affected by the floods on the night of October 29 to 30, residents began cleaning operations on Thursday morning with limited resources given the magnitude of the damage. The water displaced and crushed thousands of vehicles, devastated countless homes and businesses, and claimed dozens of victims. In the town of Paiporta alone (25,000 inhabitants), the town council has counted around forty deaths, and emergency services are searching for missing people throughout the area. “A friend called me to tell me that water was coming, I went out to the street and saw cars pushed by the current coming towards me. “We had time to grab a computer and a guitar and we took refuge upstairs.”testifies Rebecca Monton, 44 years old.
On the ground floor, the water reached 1.80 meters high and everything was destroyed. On the street, cars pile up, overturned, some crushed by the violence of the waves. A little further ahead, the vehicles collided with buildings. The city no longer has electricity or drinking water and remains difficult to access, especially as bridges have been washed away or damaged.
Hundreds of residents wander around the city with bottles trying to gather supplies to get through the day. “No one came, no police, no firefighter, no elected officials, we are all alone”laments his partner, Gonzalo Lorente. One of his friends was swept away by the water. One of his acquaintances disappeared after calling for help while clinging to a tree. “All this can happen, we know it, but why did they notify us so late? »asks Rebbeca Montón. The alert notification on their phone came when they were already sheltering on the roof of their house.
