At the gates of Halloween night, Letur She is still immersed in her worst nightmare since Tuesday. The Virgen de la Asunción public school, the only one in this beautiful town of Albacete with 900 inhabitants, has become the advanced command post and this chronicle is written from a classroom desk. The teachers and children are not there, but the decoration that they prepared with so much enthusiasm for such an important date on the school calendar remains hanging. The date, October 29, 2024, is written on the board in Spanish and English. A fateful day for the history of the cradle where the singer was born Rozalendevastated by this very hard blow.
«I’m scared, the scare hasn’t gone away yet»a civilian with a cap tells another person on the phone 24 hours after the flood. He speaks while looking towards ground zero, at the gates of the old town, which looks as if a meteorite had fallen on it.
In the entire town there is no electricity or running water even though you do not realize the catastrophe until you get fully into it, because on the winding road that takes you towards it, surrounded by lush vegetation, nothing makes you suspect the horror. Anchored in the Sierra del Segura, it is a town declared a Historic-Artistic Site since 1983, with one of the best Islamic sites preserved in the province.
In reality, the downpour was not the cause of the major tragedy in which, for the moment, It has been confirmed that a 92-year-old woman, named Dolores, has died, and there are five missingalthough it is not ruled out that there are more. It happened because “we are in an area of boulevards and here, in the Letur stream, the waters collected from the surroundings gathered,” Miguel laments. “It became a tsunami,” Katy summarizes. Although there was a second flood around ten o’clock on Tuesday night, it refers to the first and terrible flood, the one at one in the afternoon.
As in Fuenteovejuna, Civil Protection firefighters from the Albacete Provincial Council, environmental agents, Infocam personnel, Army soldiers and civil guards all work together.
The man in the cap talks about the bridge that was blocked decades ago, according to the elderly. And now the same thing has happened, recalls Juan, a locksmith. “The water took away the same house where Jony and Mónica were, the missing couple (in their thirties) who went out to the balcony and were dragged by the water,” he says. «Jony and Mónica’s two children were saved because they were in school and in high school»says Miguel, an employee at an alarm company, next to him. Mónica, a native of Letur, had started working in the camping pool, while Jonathan was employed at the El Cantero cheese factory in Letur.
In the town it is also heard that the flood almost carried away the mayor, Sergio Marín, in his car. That he was driving and caught the vehicle that was behind him and that when he looked in the rearview mirror it had already disappeared.
Dolores, the only confirmed fatality
As in Fuenteovejuna, Civil Protection, firefighters from the Albacete Provincial Council, environmental agents, Infocam personnel, Army soldiers and civil guards all work together, with the support of a helicopter, drones, divers and dogs. The rescuers have just rescued a man who had spent the night incommunicado in his home. It happens shortly after, one kilometer from the town, in the vicinity of the treatment plant, Dolores’ body has been found. The elderly woman is the only confirmed fatality in Letur and lived in Mónica and Jonathan’s nearby house.
Antonia, who lived in a mill converted into a home, has also been wanted since Tuesday. And to Juan and Manolo, city hall employeeswho were working when the flood took away everything in its path. The first, about 34 years old; the second is around 55. Ascensión, Antonia’s friend since she was little, remembers that she had talked to her about whether she was afraid of staying at the mill at night. “He told me yes, but I didn’t dare tell him to go with another family member,” he reveals.
Emergency services rescuing a person in Letur
A group of young people, who have returned to the town upon hearing the news, gather near ground zero. A teenager says that she slept “stuck, with her nerves on edge,” and her friends complained that the riverbed was not clean. Another woman asks Pedro, from Civil Protection, to allow her to go to his house when possible to pick up the oxygen machine for a man she is caring for and, in the process, check on his animals. “And don’t think it’s frivolous,” he adds.
Page: “Nature is always one step ahead”
On the other hand, numerous politicians such as Isabel Rodríguez, Minister of Housing and Urban Agenda, traveled to Letur; Alberto Núñez Feijoó, national leader of the PP; or Emiliano García-Page, president of Castilla-La Mancha, who announced that he will request the declaration of a catastrophic zone and commented: “No matter how many precautions we had, nature is always one step ahead and ends up making its way.”
* The chronicle can be sent thanks to the Red Cross, which has set up a communication system with the code ‘Sheltered’ so that journalists can use the Wi-Fi in a town immersed in sadness.
#Letur #tsunami
