Miguel Ángel woke up like any other morning. At 7:30 a.m. his alarm went off, he ate breakfast, picked up his car keys, and left the house to go to work. What this 26-year-old Valencian didn’t know was that this Tuesday, October 29, he was going to experience one of the worst days of his life. DANA, which devastated several towns and left more than 150 dead throughout the country, forced him to spend the night locked in his company’s premises. He got to work around 8:30 a.m. He said there was quite a bit of traffic jam, but nothing out of the ordinary because “Valencia collapses as soon as it rains.” He took the A-3 to reach the industrial zone of La Reva, in Riba-roja. Miguel Ángel assures ABC that “everything was normal”, even if videos of the floods in Requena, his town and in Utiel began to reach him via WhatsApp. “At no time did we imagine that this could happen here,” he says. Around 11:30 a.m., he saw that it was starting to rain and that there was “a lot of wind.” “I had the car on the lot next to my office. Later, at lunch, I replaced it with parking spaces that are in the building and which are a little higher”, he says. The chaos in the industrial zone of Riba-roja due to DANAMiguel Ángel indicates that in a few minutes everything started to get complicated. “The world championship started to fall. The drops were very thick. It felt strange, but I was more or less calm because we had water and. food,” he remembers Related news standard Yes Sheets to the windows to ask for help: “There are people stuck here” José Ramón Navarro-Pareja | SENT TO UTIEL (VALENCIA) standard Yes Hugs, tears and exchange of telephone numbers: solidarity makes its way to Paiporta among a trail of death David Maroto | Special correspondent in PaiportaThe Valencian finished his day at 6:00 p.m. and had planned to go out to go home Until this moment-. there, no one had warned them of the state of the roads or the danger of the situation. “I went down to the hall to leave. I saw that it was raining a lot and that the cars had water up to half the wheels. My companions and I stayed at the entrance waiting to see if he would stop a bit. “I looked again and there was a little stream,” he said. Miguel Ángel decided to go up to the third floor. Only two minutes have passed. “I looked out the window and saw the flood was washing away the vehicles. “Everything happened very quickly,” he emphasizes. Faced with this scenario, the young man warned the others, but on the ground floor, the water was already entering through the door. Water begins to enter buildings in the ABC industrial zone of Riba-Roja. Calls for help, people stuck in cars and no power in the building. At 7:00 p.m., DANA was in the industrial zone of Riba-roja and everyone was there fearing the worst. Migue Ángel tells this newspaper that those inside the building witnessed all the chaos outside. “Those who were stuck in the cars got out as best they could and ran towards our office. Many people arrived injured. One man had a gash on his head and another had a bad hand. They took them to a place where there is a first aid kit to help them,” he recalls. The Valencian states that there was also a mother with a child and, fortunately, they were able to help them. Part of the exterior of the ABC industrial zone of Riba-roja They also lost power inside the building and an emergency alarm went off making noise around six o’clock. even today, Miguel Ángel assures that it remains engraved in his mind “People were clinging to tree trunks and screaming I saw how a woman was dragged by the water” Miguel Ángel Roda. One of the workers who spent the night in the industrial zone of Riba-roja, too, will never be able to forget the cries he heard: “There was a huge flood. People were clinging to the trunks. trees and were screaming. I saw how a woman was being dragged by the water. Some children told me that they were in the basement when everything happened. They were able to leave, but one man remained there,” he laments. And the storm was not the only problem that the employees of this company encountered. Miguel Ángel explains: “Around 9 p.m., It started to smell like gasoline. The whole floor was full of diesel. There is a gas station in the same area. We warned people not to smoke. “If this blows up, we won’t tell anyone.” It was scary,” he said. The interior of the building with the sound of the ABC alarm. A night in the “mousetrap” of the industrial zone of Riba-roja. Due to flooding, hundreds of workers had to spend the night in the Riba-roja industrial zone. industrial zone. The mayor of the town himself, Robert Raga, described the place as a “mousetrap”. “It’s a very dramatic situation,” he confirmed to Europa Press. Michelangelo was one of the people locked in his office. The young man tells ABC what those times were like: “We ate what we could for dinner. We try to calm down. Eventually the water drained out of the hall and there were people looking outside to see what was there. Everything was blocked by sticks and cars. We were able to deactivate the alarm which was located on the ground floor. The boy says they tried to sleep, but it was completely impossible. “We put cardboard on the floor and the backpack as a pillow. We could hear the car alarms, the screams of people looking for other people. “It was very cold,” he says. Between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., the Civil Guard arrived in this industrial area of Valencia. “We informed them and they told us not to go out because we were safe there, that they would come and pick us up in the morning. While they were checking for casualties. Several companions helped them,” he says. After a long and tragic night, Miguel Ángel points out that at 6:30 a.m. the sun began to rise. “There was light and we decided to go down. We found everything in a quagmire, destroyed cars…”, he says Images of the day after the DANA passed through the ABC industrial zone of Riba-roja. However, it was only at 11 a.m. the authorities rescued them. “We got on a bus and they took us to Riba-roja, to a center they had created. They also gave us water, biscuits and clothes. noted our personal information,” says the young man. From there they were transferred at 4 p.m. to the Manises sports center, but they also had no way to get to Valencia. Finally, they walked to Paterna. “It was a 40-minute walk. All this without sleeping and without almost anything to eat, of course,” he laments. More than 24 hours later and being a direct witness to one of the greatest disasters of the century, Miguel Ángel says that his cousin was able to recover at the latter municipality and that of He arrived home at 7 p.m. This 26-year-old Valencian was lucky to find himself in a seven-story building when DANA arrived in Riba-roja. The shelter and was able to protect himself, however, he will never be able to forget the events he experienced: “It was a very tense situation. We heard the noise of cars, we were cold, we had pain all over our bodies. .I slept today, but I’m still tired. You think about the tragedy all the time. I was going to leave with the car. “You’re afraid. You see people outside who can’t get out. You want to help, but you can’t because the flood is in the way. “It’s a feeling of helplessness,” he reflects.
