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About the tragedy of the Valencia floodings...
11 months ago
Heyyyy... How's it going? Been a long time since I wrote a journal. I rarely write these things, really. I rarely feel like I have anything important to share.
Lately though, at least for the past week or two, something happened that shock all of Spain to the core, an event of titanic and catastrophic consequences that nobody foresaw.
On October 29th, a "cold drop" happened in Valencia, unleashing an amount of rain unlike anything that has been seen in almost a century. It is said that a year's worth of rain fell in a single day. The volume of water that fell over the city of Paiporta was so extreme that it washed away cars, buildings, bridges and people alike. The meteorological fenomenon caught everyone by surprise, people were trapped in their own homes, in their own cars, and many perished. The count of lives lost to this tragedy has been counted to 217 as of now, at least to my knowledge, and those who did survive the initial flooding have lost everything.
https://youtu.be/UvtkUjxVm7c?si=epFumVPVy2vVzCt8
The last week, the news have been bombarded with this disaster and the pain and suffering of the people that have gone through a watery hell in Valencia. Even the people who initially survived the flooding are having immense difficulty picking themselves back up. They have no drinkable water, no electricity, no food, trying to live one more day within the ruins of a waterlogged city. The torn cries for help that come from the TV whenever the news channels connect with the area is heartbreaking.
I have dug a little and, from different sources, it seems like the main causes for the catastrophe and the major loss of lives were the following three:
1) Excessive rainfall caused by the "cold drop". The Cold Drop (or DANA as they call it here) is a meteorological phenomenon in which cold air from the poles raises abnormally high in the atmosphere and interacts with the hotter humid air, causing a sudden condensation and massive amounts of rain in a very short period of time. Most people seem to relate this factor to climate change.
2) Poorly planned urbanistic construction. The city was built close to a cliff (Barranco del Pollo) through which rainwater collected further up could course and be released in the Gulf of Valencia. However, with intense rains, this section was prone to floodings, and the mother of all floodings allowed devastation to strike the town of Paiporta.
3) The flood warning was delayed. At 6 pm the water had already reached up to 1 or 2 meters in height, bursting through doors, trapping people in their cars, washing away properties and victims alike... And at 8 pm, two hours later, is when the alert was issued to the population. The warning came way too late when the situation was far beyond any control. The government severely underestimated the risks and the situation, and by the time they realized their mistake it was already too late. If they had issued a warning sooner and had taken the weather reports more seriously, the amount of deaths would have been reduced a great deal...
After the tragedy took place, the army has been deployed and countless of people from within the country and abroad have offered themselves as voluntaries to help assist the victims, donating food and helping in the rescue efforts. However, from what I've seen, politics are getting kind of in the way and it makes it really hard for help to reach everyone, as not everyone seems to be allowed or given permission to assist, something that personally boggles me. In such an extraordinary situation, I would say it's worth taking extraordinary measures and accept all the help that you can get, but that's just me.
I am personally unable to (I'm about as broke as they come), but if someone trully wishes to aid those in need after such a catastrophe, I'll leave a link down here to the emergency gofundme for Valencia:
https://www.gofundme.com/es-es/c/ac.....a-inundaciones
Sorry about rambling this much, I felt like I needed to let some of these things out, let it off my chest, put it out there and let people know what's going on...
Just uhh... Take care, everyone. Stay safe, ok?
And also, sorry about the elections stuff. I guess we all have our own tragedies, huh?
Lately though, at least for the past week or two, something happened that shock all of Spain to the core, an event of titanic and catastrophic consequences that nobody foresaw.
On October 29th, a "cold drop" happened in Valencia, unleashing an amount of rain unlike anything that has been seen in almost a century. It is said that a year's worth of rain fell in a single day. The volume of water that fell over the city of Paiporta was so extreme that it washed away cars, buildings, bridges and people alike. The meteorological fenomenon caught everyone by surprise, people were trapped in their own homes, in their own cars, and many perished. The count of lives lost to this tragedy has been counted to 217 as of now, at least to my knowledge, and those who did survive the initial flooding have lost everything.
https://youtu.be/UvtkUjxVm7c?si=epFumVPVy2vVzCt8
The last week, the news have been bombarded with this disaster and the pain and suffering of the people that have gone through a watery hell in Valencia. Even the people who initially survived the flooding are having immense difficulty picking themselves back up. They have no drinkable water, no electricity, no food, trying to live one more day within the ruins of a waterlogged city. The torn cries for help that come from the TV whenever the news channels connect with the area is heartbreaking.
I have dug a little and, from different sources, it seems like the main causes for the catastrophe and the major loss of lives were the following three:
1) Excessive rainfall caused by the "cold drop". The Cold Drop (or DANA as they call it here) is a meteorological phenomenon in which cold air from the poles raises abnormally high in the atmosphere and interacts with the hotter humid air, causing a sudden condensation and massive amounts of rain in a very short period of time. Most people seem to relate this factor to climate change.
2) Poorly planned urbanistic construction. The city was built close to a cliff (Barranco del Pollo) through which rainwater collected further up could course and be released in the Gulf of Valencia. However, with intense rains, this section was prone to floodings, and the mother of all floodings allowed devastation to strike the town of Paiporta.
3) The flood warning was delayed. At 6 pm the water had already reached up to 1 or 2 meters in height, bursting through doors, trapping people in their cars, washing away properties and victims alike... And at 8 pm, two hours later, is when the alert was issued to the population. The warning came way too late when the situation was far beyond any control. The government severely underestimated the risks and the situation, and by the time they realized their mistake it was already too late. If they had issued a warning sooner and had taken the weather reports more seriously, the amount of deaths would have been reduced a great deal...
After the tragedy took place, the army has been deployed and countless of people from within the country and abroad have offered themselves as voluntaries to help assist the victims, donating food and helping in the rescue efforts. However, from what I've seen, politics are getting kind of in the way and it makes it really hard for help to reach everyone, as not everyone seems to be allowed or given permission to assist, something that personally boggles me. In such an extraordinary situation, I would say it's worth taking extraordinary measures and accept all the help that you can get, but that's just me.
I am personally unable to (I'm about as broke as they come), but if someone trully wishes to aid those in need after such a catastrophe, I'll leave a link down here to the emergency gofundme for Valencia:
https://www.gofundme.com/es-es/c/ac.....a-inundaciones
Sorry about rambling this much, I felt like I needed to let some of these things out, let it off my chest, put it out there and let people know what's going on...
Just uhh... Take care, everyone. Stay safe, ok?
And also, sorry about the elections stuff. I guess we all have our own tragedies, huh?
