The confusion that followed the flood caused by DANA, which has already claimed more than 200 lives, has become an ideal breeding ground for the massive spread of hoaxes and disinformation through social networks and messaging applications like WhatsApp. The spread of these messages, which can create false security alerts and further frighten the population in the face of already very difficult circumstances, alarms the authorities, who have worked hard to deny them in order to prevent their spread.
elDiario.es summarizes below some of the main hoaxes spread in recent days regarding DANA:
There were thousands of bodies on Bonaire. One of the critical points in the search for victims of the tragedy are underground parking lots. In recent days, attention has focused on the Bonaire shopping center, in Aldaia, whose name resonated as one of the most tragic scenes of the disaster after the broadcast of messages on social networks which spoke, without proof, of the existence of hundreds or thousands of people. dead in order to generate fear and chaos.
“In the Bonaire parking lot, there are a lot of bodies, a lot of bodies. A lot,” wrote Iker Jiménez, who has more than 800,000 subscribers on During this Sunday and Monday, different teams of firefighters and police carried out work to empty the center’s underground parking lot of all water – until at 200 million liters – they checked all the vehicles and found no victims. However, the work should continue this Tuesday given that there is still around one meter of water on the surface. In any case, it seems unlikely that hundreds of bodies will be found there, as the hoax spreaders have warned.
The government has not demolished four swamps. With the catastrophe in the Valencian Community, the far right has once again resorted to one of its traditional hoaxes to emphasize that at least a good part of what happened is due to the “criminal destruction of dams” intended to contain water in the Valencian Community. in case of possible flooding.
The reality is that in the Valencian Community no large dam with the capacity to accumulate and regulate the flow has recently been removed. There have only been three demolitions in the last two decades and they are dams: barriers of a few meters which do not retain the water, they only retain it until the river overflows them and continues its course. course. These thresholds were demolished because, being disused, they presented safety risks. César Rodríguez, secretary general of the AEMS Ríos con vida association, explained in an interview with RTVE that the demolition of the dams is an “absurd and baseless hoax”.
València radar worked “without any problems” during DANA. The National Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has denied the rumor that the radar that monitors rains in Valencia did not work on Tuesday October 29, 2024, when the highest rainfall occurred in the province. The hoax spread from a video broadcast on October 25 in which a user reported that this radar was not working and the consequences this could have.
“The Valencia radar, key to meteorological monitoring, has been operating without interruption since the morning of October 28,” the agency broadcast in a message on its X account. In this same message, it also announced that a lightning strike “damaged the power line.” which powers the radar, but in emergency situations it starts with “a temporary alternate power system.” Screenshots of the Aemet radar show that it was active that day.
112 did not fail and no other telephones were put in place. The confusion that reigned in the first hours following the flood also gave rise to the spread of endless hoaxes and rumors. Among them, 112, the emergency number of the Valencian Community, had collapsed and was no longer operational. In fact, some users even broadcast an alternate number.
The president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, denied this information. “The 112 is not collapsed. If you are unable to contact the first one, insist. Please don’t spread hoaxes: the 112 has not fallen,” he posted on his X account the same Tuesday evening.
Dozens of bodies were not found in the tunnel between Alfafar-Benetússer. Another malicious hoax spread on social networks is the one related to the underground passage that connects the towns of Benetússer and Alfafar. Some profiles broadcast messages, which lead to thousands of interactions, claiming that “45 dead people” were in this tunnel.
However, sources from the Civil Guard and firefighters who participated in the vehicle removal operation confirmed to the newspaper Elevator-EMV that no deaths were noted and that a few meters from this point, a woman who had been stuck in her vehicle for three days was rescued alive.
No willing cars were fined in Picanya. The town hall of Picanya, one of the dark spots of the tragedy, has also mobilized in recent days to deny the “unfounded and malicious” hoaxes broadcast “in particular via WhatsApp”. Among them, the town hall fined volunteers who parked near the municipality, which went viral thanks to the photograph of a local police vehicle located on the outskirts of the city.
In a message on the social network had reported or deleted voluntary vehicles.
It was not the escort of the kings or Sánchez, but the local Madrid police who came to the aid.. The arrival of Felipe VI and Letizia at the epicenter of the destruction caused by DANA, in the company of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, also contributed to the spread of several hoaxes. Thus, a video went viral in which we see a row of cars accompanied by messages indicating that they were the escort of the monarch and the chief executive entering Valencia. “The escort of the king and Sánchez” or “look at the protection that the king and Sánchez bring together” were some of these messages.
The verification platform Newtral confirmed that it was a hoax and that these were Madrid municipal police cars transported to Valencia to help DANA’s work. “It is our convoy, this morning, which leaves for its corresponding destinations”, confirmed sources from Madrid City Hall, who indicated that the municipalities to which its agents will provide assistance are “Torrent, Massanassa, La Torre, Alfafar and Sedaví. “The Madrid municipal police did not go there to escort anyone, but to help the municipalities,” these same sources told Newtral. The Picanya town hall also denied that its agents cleared the streets of the municipality to “escort” the procession.
DANA is not “a HAARP weather attack”. Another hoax that has been circulating on social networks in recent days is that the flooding of Valencia would be the consequence of a meteorological attack from HAARP, a project that studies the particularities of the ionosphere, the outermost layer of the atmosphere earth which acts as a protective shield.
The fact-checking platform Check advises that this program does not have the capacity to directly affect or determine the climate. And this is due to two factors. On the one hand, because meteorological phenomena like this DANA do not form in the ionosphere, located above 80 km altitude, but much lower, in the troposphere and the stratosphere. On the other hand, because the changes that the project can generate in the ionosphere do not last more than 10 seconds, an insufficient period of time to cause a significant effect.
