Nearly five million cubic meters of mud clog the sanitation network at Ground Zero of DANA in Valencia and to this figure which passes through the basement, we must also add the mountains and mountains of mud which are in the streets , the avenues… Such a stagnant quagmire, already generates the next risk scenario that the Valencian Generalitat must manage quickly, due to the dangerous consequences that this can have on health neighbors and military and emergency personnel who work piecemeal, to return to normality in the towns of Paiporta, Alfafar, Catarroja, Sedaví, Masanasa…
“All this mud, as it dries, deteriorates air quality, generating suspended dust which remains for months above the environment of Ground Zero, like a sort of cloud loaded with particles”, warns the pediatrician Juan Antonio Ortega (Cartagena, 1967), head of the pediatric environmental health unit at the Virgen de La Arrixaca Hospital in Murcia: the reference hospital center for the entire community of Murcia.
“Suspended particles are inhaled by the population” insists Dr. Ortega, a true eminence in this field because he is the coordinator of the Environmental Health Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics. In addition, this doctor wrote the book Call the Earth and conducted research with 1,100 miners on the health effects of the 2019 DANA which devastated Los Alcázares: a town on the coast of Murcia – on the edge of the Mar Menor.
Image of the DANA that devastated Los Alcázares in 2019.
“Suspended dust generated transports polluting materials who dragged the mud”, because this doctor continues to warn that he is monitoring the situation at ground zero in Valencia, taking as reference the results of the in-depth study he carried out at the DANA in Los Alcázares, under the title: “Impact of flooding on the health of children and adolescents”.
Until now, much has been said about the infectious consequences that it can have on the health of the inhabitants of Ground Zero, exposed to stagnant, gray or fecal water, but The authorities forget an invisible enemy: dust which generate the five million cubic meters of mud which block 51% of the sewers. This network serves more than 400,000 people affected by the worst DANA of the century and whose death toll stands at 219 in Valencia, so it is crucial to clean it up as quickly as possible.
– What type of pollutants carry the dust that generates stagnant sludge in Valencia and that the population inhales every day?
-Juan Antonio Ortega: This sludge not only carries fecal and gray water, it also carries pesticides from agricultural operations, chemicals, petroleum derivatives such as automobile fuel, etc.
The particles that generate the beastly amount of accumulated sludge, according to the experience of this doctor, based on the health study he carried out at the DANA of Los Alcázares in 2019, will cause “a deterioration” of the ecosystem that surrounds the villages of the Valencian orchard during the three months following the flood. And this scenario can have effects on the health of the population after six months: “As a doctor, I worry about what could happen in the medium term.”
In fact, the head of the pediatric environmental health unit of La Arrixaca de Murcia gives advice to the President of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón: “You must carry out an air quality study at the DANA zero point“. Such research must be detailed, so that the daily or weekly evolution of the components floating in the environment and inhaled by the population of Paiporta, Alfafar, Catarroja, Algemesí…
Aerial view, taken by satellite, of the water treatment plants on the V-30 highway, in the province of Valencia.
“Human beings need oxygen,” recalls Dr. Ortega, while illustrating that the quality of the air that the inhabitants of the Valencian orchard have been breathing for days, It has similarities with the environment contaminated by PM10 solid particles which accumulate in urban areas, burdened by excessive automobile traffic.
“This dust generated by the accumulated and dried mud“, contains coarse particles, such as sand, and all the pollutants carried by DANA”, as this doctor repeats, in the spirit of a scientific broadcaster and environmental activist.
– What effects could this dust floating in the environment have on the health of the inhabitants of DANA Ground Zero?
– Juan Antonio Ortega: An increase in respiratory problems can also exacerbate cases in chronic patients, such as older adults who are diagnosed with COPD. [enfermedad pulmonar obstructiva crónica]children who suffer from asthma, adults who are at risk of suffering a heart attack because they have cardiovascular problems…
Premature births to pregnant women may also occur or babies may be born at a lower than normal weight. Without forgetting the effects that this can have on the mental health of the population.
Antonio, a volunteer who helps with cleaning work in Catarroja.
It is so important to protect ourselves from the dangerous environment of cooking “dust with particles” released by the tons of sludge accumulated at Ground Zero, that this renowned doctor, raised in the La Aljorra neighborhood of Cartagena, recommends recovering the ‘Culture Covid’ to all those inhabitants of the Valencian orchard villages devastated by DANA: “We will have to wear a mask for months“.
Dr. Ortega is not exaggerating because he is a huge mass of mud that It solidified three weeks later of this tragic Tuesday, October 29, 130 Cuban trucks, excavators and tractors are mobilized to tackle a mixed quagmire with the population’s wastewater and chemical contaminants, such as pesticides and agricultural fertilizers, to avoid a public health problem, including harmful insects.
The proof is that what worries most in Paiporta It is the mud on the surface that causes nauseating odors in several streets. In other municipalities buried by a sepia landscape which gives off a lugubrious sadness, like in Benetússer, its Town Hall works a lot to eliminate this damn mud.
“Climate change exists and is real. We went from 120 floods at the beginning of the century to 170″, reflects the head of the pediatric environmental health unit of La Arrixaca, to put an end to any denialist discourse. “This must be an opportunity for governments to learn to manage the scenario after all DANA. “What happened in Valencia was a water bomb.”
