@fedrisucess and @caracioccolata asked me to make a post about this and I think it is essential for me to do so since it really sums up the morals and modus operandi of the right wing political parties in Spain and, it's also a good way to portrait why what happened with Ferran is so sad and breaks my heart so, so much.
It is a difficult topic for me and I will probably cry while writing this because people I know were affected and, we're talking about a tragedy which changed Valencia forever.
Okay, it is done. I cried many times and I'm afraid there's so much in my head I cannot express how terrible this was. More importantly, I'm afraid I could not give you all the information I would have loved to because, to be honest, us valencians are still confused. No one is clarifying us anything further than what I expose here, that is: timeline, exact people, testimonies, what has been said in court, etc.
English is not my first language so in order to write it as properly as I could I used the dumb ass google translator so, sorry if there's any mistake.
1.What is a DANA?
A DANA is what we call a metereological phenomenon in which a mass of extremely cold polar air breaks away from its stream and circulates at a high altitude in which it collides with warm, humid air. That collision between the two creates torrential and dangerous storms.
2. The tragedy.
The areas afected by the Dana are too many so in this link you can access to the official portal of the Generalitat Valenciana to read all the names (85, 91 if we consider every part of the municipality of Valencia itself as an individual area).
A vast number of municipalities and towns were affected—whether by torrential rains or by flooding caused not by the rain itself, but by a massive surge of water rushing down from the mountains, reaching depths of two meters or more within just a few hours.
While there is a great deal of information available and the impact varied by area, I will highlight the most significant and shocking aspects here; it is essential to understand the sheer power of nature—something politicians failed to take into account.
Swept away by the water, drowned in garages, trapped in their homes, or buried in the rubble of their own houses—238 people lost their lives, as far as is known. Or rather, they were killed.
Material damages are nothing compared to that but, still:
More than 140,000 vehicles were affected by the DANA, with 85% of them declared total losses.
More than 1,600 families homeless and resulted in around 11,000 homes sustaining severe damage.
The estimated global losses from the October 2024 DANA storm exceeded 17 billion euros.
Organizations such as Save the Children have warned that more than 52% of families in the affected area noticed a significant learning lag in their children due to these interruptions, compounded by the severe emotional impact and post-traumatic stress that the children are still experiencing.
3. Political neglect.
AEMET (Statal Metereological Agency) issued a red alert for the afternoon and night of October 29, 2024, warning of the approaching DANA.
That same afternoon, the President of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, had a lunch meeting scheduled with a journalist, Mirabel Vilaplana.
I cannot fully track or determine exactly what Mazón stated, nor the timing of his calls and messages, because—nearly two years later—the matter is still under investigation.
Broadly speaking, amidst lies regarding his availability, his level of involvement, and his role in the tragedy, Mazón neglected his official duties. While AEMET is a national agency, it is the regional governments that are responsible for issuing alerts—notifications sent to the mobile phones of the entire population to advise on necessary measures and order people to stay indoors. Governments rely on AEMET for information; the general public did not widely use the agency's app because, until then, people trusted their elected officials.
The first thing that happened was that Carlos Mazón did not issue an official alert. People were going about their daily lives. It was word-of-mouth among neighbors—and the unfolding reality itself—that provided some information to the population in various areas. Even then, no one could grasp the true scale of what was to come:
Many tried to move their cars out of garages, thinking the flooding would only be a few inches deep; they never made it out.
Others tried to walk home—or drove—and were swept away by the sudden surge of water.
Others unwittingly sought shelter in homes located in vulnerable areas, unaware of the massive volume of water heading their way—water that ended up destroying entire houses.
People trapped in cars because they were going to work, or came back from it.
Had an alert been issued, people still would have died—that was inevitable, as everyone who could would have sheltered at home—but the death toll would not have reached 238.
Some people lost their whole families. Others saw someone loved die in front of them. I can't search for testimonies of that, I'm sorry. It's too much. I know there are videos of people explaining what they saw, how it happened, who died... but I don't want to see them so I don't want to recommend videos randomly.
In this short video you have some of what people could record. The girl trapped between leaves and water made it out safely. I want to add that in this video you won't see hurt people or people being swept by water as others could capture.
In these ones, however, you can. They were fortunately saved, but still. So, TW: 1 2
Mazón received messages from the leader of his party, a right-wing party known as the PP, Alberto Núñez-Feijoo. He also received messages from Salomé Pradas—the person ostensibly in charge of managing the situation until he arrived at the coordination center, the CECOPI. He did not show up there until late in the afternoon—many hours later—having changed his clothes in the meantime. In short: he received messages that people were dying, that emergency telephone lines were collapsed, yet he downplayed the situation and took his time (hours) before finally appearing to manage the crisis.
Not only he didn't alert the people but he also didn't care to show up for them after he failed, and he then lied to avoid being accused and to avoid facing the consequences of his actions. And the worst thing, it's working. Justice has not yet punished him for killing 238 people.
4. Volunteers and shouts of "murderer."
The first to step in and help were volunteers from across Spain. Residents of the affected areas—lacking the proper equipment to assist directly—provided the volunteers with food, water, and whatever else they could spare. These volunteers worked around the clock, cleaning up, helping in shelters, and clearing the streets. Many began to develop skin infections caused by organic waste and the carcasses of dead animals in the stagnant water.
''Only the people save the people''.
Once again, the political Right followed its usual script: it accused the (left-wing) central government of negligence, citing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s remark: "If they want help, they need to ask for it."
How does this process actually work?
For state bodies like the military to intervene in a disaster within an autonomous region, the regional government must formally request that assistance; the central government cannot legally send aid without such a request, as doing so would be considered an authoritarian overreach against a fully legal and functional regional government. Mazón did not request that aid (at first), yet he still accused the central government of negligence. The dilemma? Even if Pedro Sánchez had committed the illegal act of sending aid anyway, the Valencian Right would have denounced him and branded him a dictator—just as they love to do on a daily basis.
A great many celebrities stepped up to help, among them Ferran Torres, who is from Valencia.
'Valencia does not forget'. '29 of October of 2024, Valencia always in our memory'.
The tragedy and political negligence before, during, and after the crisis changed public opinion regarding Mazón forever.
And not just regarding Mazón, but all political institutions of power as well.
At every possible event, people in the crowd would shout "murderer" at Mazón. This video is definitely essential; it is from the state funeral for the victims. Please, put on subtitles and watch it because it is so... I can't watch it without crying.
When the King and Queen of Spain visited the affected area, they too were met with shouts of "murderers"; mud was thrown at them, young people shouted at the King asking why nothing was being done, and the Queen wept as she listened to women describe what they had lived through and the deaths they had witnessed.
5. And now?
We are still waiting for justice. We are still waiting for VOX to hand over the millions of euros it swindled through a fraudulent association ostensibly set up for DANA help. We are still waiting for Mazón to go to prison for murder. We are still waiting for the victims' families to stop feeling like they are being mocked. We are still waiting for them to stop laughing at us. We are still waiting for a legal, uncorrupted justice system, and we are still waiting for Mazón to stop collecting a paycheck funded by our money. We are still waiting for him to die as horribly as our loved ones did; we are still waiting for infrastructure to be repaired and for us to be taken seriously.
And after all this waiting, the Right—those to blame for everything, the killers of over 238 people (with a track record of other deaths resulting from their tragedies and negligence)—has regained its strength. Valencia is not as present in people's minds as it seems.
That is why this hurts so much, and why I feel so betrayed by someone I once admired—someone with whom I indirectly shared suffering and ideals, and who had come to represent kindness, generosity, and a voice for the people, backed by power and fame.
I feel like we’re not talking enough about the fact that yeremy and unai kissed!!?? like I know we all know that all of the team is gay asf but publicly?? gay love?? in this cruel homophobic world?? and they KISSED??? wow I love them
joaric play-fighting and eric pretends to choke himself like paredes did so joan promptly put a stop to it 😭😭😭 SO PLAYFUL YET SO SOFT WITH EACH OTHER ALWAYS!!!!
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