Tuesday's devastating storm over the Valencian Community has already claimed more than a hundred lives
ML still finds it difficult to put into words the damage that the DANA has caused both in the Valencian municipality of Benetússer where he works and in the town where he lives, Paiporta, one of the hardest hit by the powerful storm that fell on Tuesday and has already left nearly a hundred dead and a trail of destruction. But he is clear that what he is experiencing is quite similar to the apolitical films he has seen so many times on television. “The situation is devastating, the streets look like something out of a zombie apocalypse, There are cars stacked up forming barricades in the streets, a lot of mud and all kinds of objects”, he tells Infobae Spain This police officer who has spent almost 24 hours walking through water and mud.
“My feet are covered in blisters from walking for so long without stopping in water and mud. I have been given 10 hours to be able to return home and rest, but as I have lost my vehicle“I had to walk back and now I am back to work,” he says, although the police station has been “completely destroyed.” The shops in Paiporta and Benetússer “no longer exist and even the machinery in bakeries and workshops has been torn down”, while supermarkets and all kinds of shops “have been completely looted,” he says, anxiously, although the most difficult thing to deal with are the fatalities that appear as we enter areas that were previously impassable. “There are dead people, both on the ground floors and in basements, who were trying to get their vehicles out of the garages and even one of my colleagues was rescued by the skin of his teeth.” “It’s like some kind of apocalypse,” he insists.
The most devastating DANA
Although the Mediterranean is used to dealing with extreme phenomena such as cold drops, this latest DANA, an acronym that stands for Isolated Depression at High Levels and which is produced by the collision of a mass of cold air at altitude with the warm air on the surface, has been the most devastating of the century. To find a comparable disaster, we must go back to October 14, 1957, when the Turia River flood caused great damage as it passed through Valencia and claimed 12 lives, nothing compared to the number of deaths caused this time by the DANA.
The difference with respect to the past is that in recent years the frequency and intensity of these climatic phenomena have increased dramatically due to global warming, as explained to this newspaper by researcher Fernando Valladares, from the Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). In addition, the increase in the temperature of the Mediterranean Sea, which is warming faster than the global average, has also contributed to this DANA being so destructive. “The Mediterranean has tropical sea temperatures, since for several months of the year reaches 30 degrees, and it is not at all normal for an extratropical sea to have tropical temperatures," says the renowned scientist, who clarifies that "this clash of warm, humid air coming from the sea with the cold, dry air coming from the north are the perfect ingredients for a mega storm".
The Military Emergency Unit (UME) is focusing its work this Thursday morning on searching for missing persons in the affected areas with the help of dogs. has begun to offer psychological help. "We cannot give an exact number, but many people are missing," said the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, in an interview on Telecinco, and she assured that the military will remain in the affected areas for as long as necessary, according to Europa Press.
The minister explained that there are now concerns about situations such as those in Paiporta and Masanasa “where there may be people in garages and basements because they went to pick up their vehicles and there is no contact with them” and she hoped “that it is because communications are cut off”.
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