When flooding began in Paiporta, Valencia, Camelia’s husband went down to the street to move their motorbikes. Five minutes later, she looked out from the balcony to see him trapped, water reaching up to his armpits. At that moment – 8.11pm, 29 October – a local mobile alert began sounding. According to regional president Carlos Mazón, this delayed response of almost 12 hours was the fault of anyone but local government.
Camelia’s husband survived, but more than 200 people did not. Mazón first blamed the Spanish government, led by Pedro Sánchez’s centre-left Socialist Worker’s Party. The State Meteorological Agency had issued a red alert at 7.36am, and the River Basin Authority sent Mazón’s government 194 messages warning of dramatic water level rises. Yet, Mazón, a member of Spain’s rightwing Peoples’ Party, argues that he was not given ‘sufficient and timely information’ to warn his constituents of the impending danger.
