Chiva is one of the critical points of the DANA disaster. The Poyo ravine crosses the commune and its flow experienced a sudden flood following the torrential rains upstream: “It started to overflow at 1:30 p.m. and by 3:00 p.m. it was already chaos. “No one warned us of anything until the message arrived on our cell phones after 8 p.m., when we were already sheltering at our neighbor’s house.”
José Ángel Pérez, 45, lived in a ground floor house on a street that borders the ravine and thus describes the rapid rise of the waters. According to him, he was with his five children and when the building started to flood, they were able to escape through “a side door that leads to the stairs of the building.” He says they have “lost everything” and are currently staying in a hotel paid for by the Town Hall. Concerning their needs and the role of politicians, the message is clear: “They are all scoundrels, we need resources, more military personnel, with 500, it is not even a start. They keep evacuating people with excavators, there will be 2,000 cars in the industrial park and we don’t know how many deaths.”
As elDiario.es verified on site, the situation in the municipality is critical in terms of destruction, but it is a little more controlled than in the affected areas of Horta Sud. The Town Hall organizes the volunteers on the town hall square and. distribute food, water, masks or rubber boots. Different associations, such as the Peña Torico de Chiva, also organize popular meals in different locations for neighbors, security forces or volunteers.
However, traces of devastation are evident around the ravine, in the area around the church and in the industrial zone of La Pahílla, where the cleaning, the clearing of debris and the removal of completely destroyed vehicles are concentrated.
Isabel Mora’s mother, 42, lived in a house that faced the street, next to the ravine. The part of the street next to his house has disappeared and so has the house: “There is no house, there is half a house, the facade, but there is no house. It started to rain a lot, my mother was very worried because there was a leak. I went down to help him around 4:00 p.m. and soon the ravine overflowed. I told my mother, who is 79, to leave or we would drown. My mother didn’t want to leave, but I grabbed her arm, took her to the car and ran out. I don’t even know how we got out, the water was up to the window. We went to my place with my children, we live in a higher urbanization. “I don’t even know how we live.”
The Military Emergency Unit (UME) began this Friday the tasks of searching for survivors and cleaning up, from the area of the business park and the ravine, where many cars were dragged from Highway A -3. The panorama upon access to the industrial site is Dantean. Streets full of mud and vehicles of all kinds, including trucks, overturned on the side of the road. Several army units were busy clearing the most damaged streets and warehouses with heavy machinery.
Electricity and water supplies have been restored to the urban center since Friday evening, although there are still occasional service outages. Miguel Ángel Bolinches and Alicia Orozco are the owners of Mosquistop. They have 25 workers and a huge warehouse full of mud, machines and equipment that has become useless: “We estimate the damage at one million euros. Part of the mountain above the ship collapsed, leaving a huge hole through which all the water and the neighborhood, even an entire tree, entered. Here we have over 60 volunteers from all over to help clean up. “We need resources, an excavator and machines to eliminate all the waste. »
The Chiva City Council insisted that it still needs diesel and cleaning products such as brooms, shovels or brooms. Among the aid priorities, they emphasize the restoration of electricity supply in the Olimar urbanization. The Solana well also needs repair as it is still damaged and runs on generators that periodically break down. Furthermore, he expressed his immense gratitude to all the troops, both volunteers and military and security forces, who are coming in droves to help.
Drunk volunteers
A total of 19 volunteers were poisoned by carbon monoxide, two of them seriously, in a garage in the Valencian town of Chiva, while carrying out cleaning work due to the effects caused by dana.
Civil Guard sources reported that the event occurred around 2:30 p.m. in a garage located on Ramón y Cajal Street in the city, apparently due to poor combustion in the motor of a drain pump. Some of those affected had to be treated at the Chiva health center.
