Spain Declares Catastrophe in Areas Affected by Floods
Effects of flooding in Valencia, Spain, Nov. 2024. X/ @AbelUrenaRDO
November 5, 2024 Hour: 10:04 am
The Spanish government will cover 100 percent of the emergency expenses incurred by affected municipalities.
On Tuesday, Spanish President Pedro Sanchez declared Valencia and other areas flooded last week as zones affected by a civil protection emergency.
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He stated that his cabinet is working on four priority areas: saving lives, recovering the victims’ bodies, ensuring street safety, and restoring supplies and services in the affected areas.
The first package of measures has a total cost of 10.6 billion euros, which will be distributed across 75 municipalities in the Valencian Community, 2 municipalities in Castilla-La Mancha, and 1 municipality in Andalusia. These resources will be directed to aid households, businesses, and institutions affected by an Isolated Depression at High Levels (DANA).
The Spanish government will cover 100 percent of the emergency expenses incurred by affected municipalities and will reimburse up to 50 percent of all work to be carried out in the coming months and years to repair infrastructures, facilities, and services such as roads, sports centers, or civic centers.
The Government’s response will consist of three phases: the first, an urgent response to the disaster; the second, reconstruction of the affected areas; and the third, a revitalization phase focused on the transformation to adapt the territory to the climate emergency affecting the Mediterranean Sea.
Sanchez specified that the number of deployed military personnel, national police officers, and civil guards in the province of Valencia has increased from 7,300 to 14,898. They are accompanied by 287 forest brigades, around a hundred customs officers, 44 forensic doctors, and 600 vehicles and specialized machinery for pumping, cleaning, and supplying the affected areas.
Currently, according to the Sanchez administration, 98 percent of affected households have power supply, 40 km of roads and 74 km of railway lines have already been repaired, and medium- and long-distance train service between the cities of Valencia and Castellan, Tarragona, Teruel, and Barcelona has been restored.
On Tuesday, the President of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazon, announced that he would appear before the regional parliament on November 14 to publicly explain the disaster management.
President Sanchez, however, announced that he would not enter into political debates until the situation is clarified because “there will be time in both the Valencian Parliament and the Lower Chamber to analyze everyone’s responsibilities and to understand exactly how to improve civil protection systems.”
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
