'The risk is extreme': two weeks after deadly floods hit south-east Spain, the country's national meteorological service (Aemet) has put the coastal areas of Valencia on red alert due to further heavy rainfall.
"Avoid commuting. Stream overflows and floods may occur," Aemet stressed. The red alert was activated yesterday Wednesday at 21:00 (local time, 22:00 Greek time) and will be valid until today at 12:00 (13:00 Greek time).
According to Aemet, up to 180mm of rain could fall in the space of 12 hours in the coastal areas of Valencia. For this reason the authorities have announced travel restrictions while school classes have been suspended for today in more than 100 communities. These are some of the areas affected by the deadly floods of October 29, which claimed the lives of at least 223 people.
Movements are only allowed in cases of "force majeure", the head of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazzon, who has been heavily criticized for the lack of response and chaotic management of previous floods, told X. These measures are "emergency" and aim to "guarantee the safety of citizens", he explained.
Due to torrential rain, train services between Barcelona and Valencia have been suspended, while the scheduled resumption of services between Madrid and Valencia this morning has been postponed, the Spanish Transport Ministry announced.
The red alert means that "extremely intense" weather events are expected, which pose a "very high level of risk to citizens," Aemet explained.
Because of this new "cold drop" — an isolated high-altitude low barometric phenomenon quite common in autumn on Spain's Mediterranean coast — Aemet also put Malaga in the Andalucia region on red alert until 09:00 this morning.
"Today Málaga is paralyzed," Andalusian regional president Juan Manuel Morena said during a visit to Seville. "Prevention is better than cure, we saw it in Valencia," he stressed.
Many roads in Seville have been flooded, the metro has been suspended, many flights have been canceled or diverted to other airports, and the rail link to Madrid has been disrupted. More than 4.200 people have been removed from their homes for "precautionary" reasons.
In the meantime the red alert issued yesterday for the region of Tarragona (in Catalonia) has been reduced to orange.
In Paiporta, the epicenter of the October 29 tragedy, residents had since Wednesday created improvised embankments, placing sandbags in front of house doors, fearing that the sewers, which are still full of mud, will overflow.
For precautionary reasons, many communities in the region asked the thousands of volunteers who go every day to help residents open the roads, not to go to the affected areas yesterday.
Also yesterday, several warning messages were sent to the mobile phones of the residents of the areas where heavy rains are expected, after the criticism received by the authorities of Valencia for being late in sending corresponding messages on October 29.
Source: protothema.gr
