“The situation is still critical.” Valencia after the floods

Although piles of destroyed cars and furniture no longer block the streets in Valencia, “the situation in many municipalities is still critical,” reports the Madrid daily ABC. Official estimates put 222 dead and four missing in the province of Valencia alone. The floods destroyed about 120,000 cars and over 1,600. houses are uninhabitable.

“Despite the mobilized aid, some towns affected by the flood still resemble war scenes,” writes the Madrid-based daily ABC. As he notes, the biggest threats to residents are currently mold and moisture. In Valencia, thousands of children are still out of school and many businesses and shops remain closed. As reported by the daily “La Vanguardia”, local authorities are afraid of premature withdrawal of aid and are calling for the acceleration of the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure and houses. – Restoring destroyed towns to their pre-disaster condition is the worst thing we can do – warns Annelies Broekman, a researcher at the Center for Ecological Research and Forest Applications (CREAF), quoted by the daily “El Mundo”. According to her, reconstruction should be carried out taking into account the updated flood risk map. Pedro Sanchez's government has so far announced three aid packages for the injured, worth a total of almost EUR 17 billion. On Friday, the Ministry of Labor announced the introduction of four-day paid leave in the event of extreme weather conditions. – The floods in Spain were an example that climate change kills, said Prime Minister Sanchez at the COP29 climate summit held in mid-November in Azerbaijan.

Violent stormsfloods and flooding that hit Spain are the result of an atmospheric phenomenon known as DANA (depression aislada en niveles altos). It is formed when cold air meets warm and moist air over the Mediterranean Sea. This leads to extreme weather phenomena such as storms, tornadoes and floods.

The term DANA was formulated in the early 21st century. Previously, cyclical heavy rainfall, characteristic of the Mediterranean climate, was referred to as “gotta fria“which in Spanish means “cold front“.