The far right has once again used one of its most classic hoaxes: the demolition of dams. Several ultra accounts and agitators, like Bertrand Ndongo, have dedicated themselves to spreading the message that “smart people” blew up Franco’s dam project “and today citizens are suffering the consequences.”
The leader of Vox himself, Santiago Abascal, said in a tweet to Ursula Von der Leyen that he was “guilty” of the tragedy with his “criminal law of blowing up dams.” In this message, he also accused her of being “an enemy of the Spanish” and of practicing “the worst act of scavenging”. In his post he doesn’t mention Franco, but many other agitators in Vox’s orbit do: “The best leader Spain has had and ever will have.” If Valencia is not a lagoon today, it is thanks to this project. »
“After the terrible floods of October 1957 in Valencia, Franco immediately launched a plan for reservoirs and dams to avoid disasters like the one we are experiencing today in Valencia. Intelligent people came to you later and started dynamiting these works and today, citizens are suffering the consequences of these fanatical and useless politicians,” Ndongo said directly.
There is no relationship between floods and reservoirs, as experts are reminding us these days. There have only been three demolitions in Valencia in the last two decades and these are dams, that is to say barriers of a few meters to divert the canals (and which, being disused, cause safety risks). Interviewed by RTVECésar Rodríguez, secretary general of the AEMS Ríos con vida association, explained that this is an “absurd and baseless hoax.”
“The episode occurred on the outskirts of La Planada in Valencia, it did not take place along the coast as on other occasions, and there were very violent rains with figures of 500 or 600 liters per square meter in a few hours (…) “What is the cause is the overflow of rivers which are normally ravines and which carry very little or no water in their usual situation and which are swelling suddenly a lot,” he argues.
According to reports El País According to sources from the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the thresholds demolished in Valencia are the Molí de Malanya threshold, in Bellús (Valencia), demolished in 2022; the Corindón dam in 2017 (in the bed of the Turia river), with a height of 1.50 meters; and four thresholds on Boulevard L’Algoder, demolished in 2006. None of them affect the flood zone and they were removed because they also present a risk “during floods or floods because their virulence increases”, according to the explanation of Ecological Transition. El País.
The conspiracy on AEMET
From the right, AEMET has also been targeted (and, again, this is not new). This same Thursday, the PP questions the information it receives from public bodies: “I assure you that a regional president manages according to the information he receives, and the information received depends on competent bodies. exclusive of the central government, see AEMET or the Hydrographic Confederation (…) No one can make decisions based on information which may be accurate, inaccurate or subject to improvement. Decisions are made based on the information provided to you at all times,” he insisted.
According to the timeline of Tuesday’s events, AEMET placed the entire coast of Valencia and the northern interior of the province on red alert at 9:48 a.m., and the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat Valenciana issued a level red alert. alert for this entire area, just 12 minutes later. At one in the afternoon, Carlos Mazón himself declared that the intensity of DANA would decrease after 6 p.m. Information that he himself published on his official Twitter account and which he then deleted due to the events.
