Protests in Valencia. “There must be accountability for this abandonment.”

Demonstrators condemn the actions taken during the flood that occurred in the Autonomous Community of Valencia, as well as the crisis management after the flood receded. Protesters displayed banners calling for justice and accountability. According to the AP news agency, some demonstrators clashed with the police in front of the city hall in Valencia, where the march to the seat of the regional government began. The police used batons to drive them away.

The demands included the resignation of Valencia's president, Carlos Mazón, whom residents of eastern Spain consider chiefly responsible for mismanagement at a critical time. One of the accusations they level against Mazón is that his administration did not send out flood alerts early enough. Some were to receive them when water was already entering their homes. One of the protesters had a poster with her on which she wrote: the alarm rang exactly when I was climbing onto the balcony.

Mazón, who belongs to the conservative People's Party, is also criticized for a too slow and chaotic response to the natural disaster. It was volunteers who were the first to reach many of the worst-affected areas on the southern outskirts of Valencia. It took local authorities several days to ask the central government to send reinforcements.

– We're alive, but I don't know how. The only thing I want to say is that there must be accountability for this abandonment and institutional neglect, Angela Quadrilla, a 22-year-old student, told Reuters news agency reporters.

According to AP, earlier on Saturday, Mazón told regional station À Punt that “there will be time to hold officials accountable,” but now the most important thing is “to continue cleaning our streets, helping people and rebuilding.” He also noted that he “respected” the march.

Violent stormsfloods and flooding that hit Valencia at the end of October, took the lives of 223 people. The search for several dozen missing people continues – they are now concentrated along a more than 25-kilometer stretch of the province's maritime coast where the water may have carried the bodies.

The scale of the flood, which devastated several dozen Valencian municipalities, is the result of an atmospheric phenomenon known in Spain as DANA (depression aislada en niveles altos). It is formed when cold air meets warm and moist air over the Mediterranean Sea, leading to extreme weather phenomena.