Benamargosa is a small town of around 1,500 inhabitants in lower Axarquía, in the east of Málaga province, nestled on the edge of a narrow valley flanked by hills now covered with avocados and mangoes. Most of the houses are perched on one of these hills, from where you can clearly see the river of the same name. But there are also a good handful of buildings, a park and even a football field placed in recent decades on the left bank and around the bridge that crosses the river. On Wednesday, between two and six in the afternoon, the mud engulfed everything: the bridge, the houses, the shops, the football field, the lemon trees on the shore and even the town church.
This Thursday, the Colombian priest Carlos Samuel Córdoba, who arrived a few weeks ago, was cleaning and drying the benches in the sun. A few hours earlier, at six o’clock Wednesday afternoon, he had an intuition and was able to get closer when the rain subsided somewhat. “We couldn’t even go in because the water was coming out of the church door. All the benches blocked the main door,” he says.
The river had opened the side gate, which was then closed, transforming the interior of the temple into a raft capable of stacking the benches next to the main gate. With water up to his knees, the priest says that he took out what was most important in the parish, “the Blessed Sacrament”, he said, referring to the tabernacle, and that he kept it in his house. Today, it comforts him to know that there are no victims and the “solidarity” of the neighbors who clean up the city.
As she piles up everything on the sidewalk and cleans what’s left of her hair salon, María José Marín says that the church historically marked the city boundary. “Upstairs, the other houses.” Below, the river. Until 70 years ago. Over time, it was built next to the bridge and the commercial life of the city was established there: a few bank branches, the hairdresser, bars, a workshop, the supermarket, the recently opened bakery… Yesterday it became an island. Everything is a “high probability” flood zone (in ten-year periods), as shown in the National Flood Mapping System viewer.
“The problem is that it is at the level of the river, so when it brings more than necessary, with earth and weeds, a blockage forms and sends the water towards the place,” explains the woman , who lost all of his business equipment: armchairs, furniture, appliances and even a washer and dryer for towels. “I know that I am on land reclaimed from the river and that is why I am not complaining. But leave it at least two meters lower,” he laments.
Pablo Díaz saw it from his house, located just above the bar where he works, which was closed yesterday. They lost freezers, souvenirs, mattresses, goods. “Chaos, but it’s material,” he breathes. He had time to bring the donkey and the pony of his brother-in-law, owner of the bar, into the restaurant and was thus able to save them. “I was passing over the bridge. It was a beach. There was a red notice, but no one expected it,” he says. The water came up to his waist and destroyed the garden. He was able to record a video where we see his two cars floating against the garage, while water enters from the river as if it were propulsion.
Juan Manuel Moreno, president of the Council of Andalusia, visited this Thursday the place hardest hit by the DANA which swept the province on Wednesday. “The neighbors were afraid and there were some who lost everything,” he declared, before calling to “prevent” these disasters, which will become more frequent because of climate change. In the commune, four groups of forest firefighters (of three or four members each), a reinforcement brigade (ten members), two pumpers and an INFOCA mother truck, led by an operations technician, worked to remove the mud from the firefighters . the Provincial Consortium.
A diminished chain
Just like the hairdresser, the orchard and the bar, homes and businesses are located on land that the river claimed this Wednesday. Here it extends to a theoretical width of around 40 meters, but its capacity has been reduced.
Largely, because the natural course has been occupied by buildings, the municipal swimming pool, a park and even a football field, whose artificial turf has been folded like a beach towel and whose goals now accumulate the reeds like a net full of fish. The bridge is called the Bridge of Ten Eyes, but those closest to the shore are already almost integrated into the city. “They are no longer useful. They left it halfway,” summarizes Marín, who says that before all it was just “sidewalk and lemons”.
The capacity of the river has also decreased by reducing its depth, because aggregates are no longer extracted from its bed, which is lifted by sediments. You can see that the bridge’s eyes are half open, so there are barely a few meters between the bed and the bridge. “Do you think these tamarisk trees can get underneath?” asks Francisco Gutiérrez, pointing to the viewpoint from which he can see the dry river bed, yesterday laden with reeds and mud. Before, many remember, a truck could pass through the eyes.
In the city, many people have found those responsible: politicians from the regional administration (responsible for the chain) and the municipal administration. Also “the environmentalists”, accused of being at the origin of the restrictions on the maintenance and clearance of the canal. They regret that they can no longer remove even a stone from the bed, which previously served as building material or beach sediment. And they remember that 60 years ago there was a gravel pit which was used to channel the river and reduce its sediments.
A height never seen before
This Wednesday, the height of the river exceeded anything that had been seen until then. It reached 5.28 meters, shattering its previous all-time record, the 3.28 set in 2012. Then it also overflowed, but not like now. It was raining then too, but not like it is now.
“I didn’t think it was going to boil over…I just knew it.” In 2012, it was already overflowing, and a DANA is worse. “I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know it was going to last so long,” replies Emmanuel Martín, as he finishes cleaning his premises. Like everyone else, he received the Es-Alert message Tuesday evening. The next morning they were warned again. And he closed around one o’clock in the morning, because he asked himself a question: “What am I doing here, running into danger?”
The enormous amount of rain that fell on Benamargosa and especially upstream (in Comares or Riogordo) ended up pouring into this bend. There were 132 liters per square meter in just four hours, enough to charge the river like never before. With this rain, the two upstream sills could hardly contain the flow, and the pipe that feeds the La Viñuela reservoir, 3.5 meters wide, was transformed into a narrow straw.
In the community, neighbors also report weeds. Reeds and bushes that accumulated this Thursday in the meanders, which crossed the eyes of the bridge and which, they suspect, could also have blocked the connection with La Viñuela, without anyone having confirmed it. The reservoir, the largest and most exhausted in a region thirsty after five years of drought, is on track to gain ten cubic hectometers (10,000 million liters) during this episode. It went from 15% of its capacity to more than 20%, with 33.73 cubic hectometers.
Area colonized by avocados and mangoes
Lemon trees still dominate the banks, but this is an area today colonized by avocados and mangoes, which after drinking the water of La Viñuela have barely survived for two years, if they can. , thanks to very little rain, private ponds, regenerated water (much more saline, undrinkable for avocados) and occasionally good.
The DANA pass is visible on the road to Benamargosa, now marked by stones and mud that workers are busy removing. At the foot of the road, still in Triana (a district of Vélez-Málaga), Francisco Guirado and Manuel Quero observe the destruction. What was once a road that led to Almáchar and Benamocarra is now a mess of brush and plastic. Shrouded in reeds, the force of the water even carried away two concrete huts. “It weighs over a thousand kilos and ripped them off.” They served twelve irrigators, who will have to replace them, just like the irrigation tubes that Guirado had on his six hectares of land. “For tropical people, this is a blessed glory, but whoever gets this, instead of the winning coupon, has to pay,” says Quero.
The man remembers that 55 years ago, when he was 8 or 9 years old, this area was already flooded. “The raisins were lost and all was lost. » He remembers it because he had a good time that day with water up to his knees and not caring about what happened. But then there was a riverbed and an avenue that were not affected, he observes. He also insists that there was a cleaner river bed and, in Benamargosa, a bridge under which a truck could pass.
Guirado, by his side, says he has never seen anything like what happened Wednesday.
