There are thousands of them. Probably tens of thousands, in fact, throughout the metropolitan area of Valencia, in an impressive citizen movement. Volunteers equipped with brooms, shovels, rakes, buckets, bags… arrived on foot from areas of Valencia preserved by the wave that devastated the region on Tuesday, October 27, killing 211 people, according to the latest provisional report.
On one of the bridges that crosses the deadly ravine, the line of walkers did not stop for hours, an immense and silent parade of concrete solidarity. Many of them have gone shopping and bring what they can carry: water, canned food, blankets. The day before, the regional authorities had made the decision to prohibit traffic in the affected areas for several days. The influx of volunteers had blocked the movement of emergency services.
The regional government, widely criticized for having issued an alert too late on the day of the flood and for its lack of organization since the beginning of the crisis, requisitioned dozens of buses to transport these thousands of volunteers gathered in front of the room. of the City of Sciences and Arts in this district of Valencia with contemporary architecture built in the old bed of the Turia, and which was saved from the wave.
Cemeteries of automobile civilization
Students, retirees, executives, workers, families, groups of friends waited a long time – sometimes more than four hours – to board the buses. “Many have loved ones who have been directly affected but that is not the issue, we come to help everyone, no one in particular”testifies Maica Fuertes, 58 years old, health assistant, accompanied by her daughter, while waiting for the shuttles. By the end of the morning, the line was still several hundred meters long, although the buses had not stopped coming and going.
On site, in an incredible crowd, the volunteers, sometimes helped by farmers who came to the city with their tractors or construction companies with their machines, helped the neighbors to empty the basements, the parking lots, the warehouses of the stores, the ground Ground floors of homes. The construction site is huge. In the urban communities of Alfafar and Benetusser, the streets are full of debris of all kinds that must be removed from buildings, collected and then loaded onto trucks. The volumes to be recovered are considerable. The first town has about 22,000 inhabitants, the second about 16,000. The same scenes occurred in Catarroja, Massanassa or Paiporta, other riverside towns hit hard by the wave.
You have 28.45% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
