More than a week has passed since DANA devastated Valencia. On October 29, moments of authentic agony were experienced, with a waterspout that took away not only the cars in the images, but also the lives and dreams of hundreds of people.
220 dead is the number of bodies found. Water, mud and disaster have invaded several towns in the community. A landscape that many have described as apocalyptic.
In the face of tragedy, the worst and best of human beings are revealed; and in Paiporta, in Manisse, in Chive, in Sedaví and in all the affected towns, authentic moments of hope and humanity were experienced. The sentence that accompanies the disaster: “The people save the people” and those who have done it, and continue to do it to a large extent, are young people.
Aarón Palacio, 24-year-old bullfighter from Zaragozais one of those young people who did not hesitate to help and went to Sedaví, one of the most affected towns. JuWith two friends, Ángel and Bruno, they started the trip last Friday afternoon.with uncertainty in their chest and a firm desire to contribute what they can. “We decided to go out on Friday evening because they told us they were going to close the roads, and so we were already there when the rescue started,” Aarón says simply.
After spending the night there, at 7 a.m., they were able to see the reality that surrounded them with light: “Everything I had seen on television seemed little to me. There are homeless people, people who have lost family members and people who still don’t know where their family is. “It was like a battlefield,” he recalls sadly.
Aarón Palacio with Luis Blázquez, banderillero and Miguel Senent.
EE
However, in shock, they immediately took action: “They told us we would be in the way, that there was a shortage of volunteers, and when we arrived, nothing could be further from the truth.. I think the more of us the better. In the street, there may not be a need for much help because everything is already piled up, but without the volunteers, nothing would have progressed inside the houses,” he says convinced.
They worked all day,exit debris so they can enter homes and clean up the mud. Going door to door asking if they needed anything. They spent the night with an acquaintance of Bruno’s who, without knowing them, opened the doors to offer them a hot shower and a roof over their heads: “Strangers who offer you their house, who open the doors to you without asking you where you just… I think it marks you,” he muses.
People gather to clean a mud-covered street in Sedavi.
Reuters
By the end of the weekend, the pain of leaving Sedaví became a personal promise. “I plan to come back. There is a lot of work to be done and I think this work will last for months“, said Aaron.
It’s hard work emotionally and physically, but Aarón and many young people like him have shown it This is not a generation of glass, superficial and soft; who are able to look around, empathize and roll up their sleeves, put on their boots and grab a shovel to help when needed.
Every generation has its good and bad things, and the light that we can see behind the tragic scene of these Valencian villagesis that of a young generation fighting side by side for a future full of hope.
Thanks to this force, debris is cleared not only from streets, but also from soul of a people who are reborn with each gesture of solidarity.
