The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has drawn up a rather bleak outlook for recovering the transport network in Valencia after the passage of DANA. At a press conference, the first thing he demanded was that no attempt be made to enter or leave Valencia by road unless it is strictly necessary. “The damage is tremendous,” he said. “The recommendation is that you do not try to enter or leave Valencia because you are making our priority tasks difficult,” which involves finding people who are still missing. “Any mobility that is not strictly necessary is inadvisable.”
Puente has recognized that a large part of the road network “is seriously damaged”, there is “very significant damage that will cost a lot to replace, not only financially, but also in effort and time.” For example, recovering traffic on the A-7 may take months or removing cars that have been stranded will take months.
There are still elements missing to make a complete diagnosis but there are clear problems, such as the collapsed bridge on the A-7, the Valencia ring road, which receives 100,000 vehicles a day under normal circumstances. “It will be very difficult to return that road to normal.” “We are going to try to move along V-30 and V-31, where part of the circulation has been recovered. In total, the affected kilometers of the State network are 80. “There are mountains of vehicles.”
On the railway, part of the High Speed tunnel between Madrid and Valencia “has disappeared.” “We are going to have to replace 1.2 kilometers of network infrastructure,” in addition, another part of the tunnel is “completely flooded” and it is not yet possible to know “how far the damage extends.” “Let’s see what we find,” he assumed.
The Cercanías situation “is very serious”
“The high-speed network will not resume this Monday. We will see in two or three weeks, it is the minimum time for the work if we do not find anything more serious,” he stressed. “The tracks have to be raised and that is going to take time,” he pointed out. Also, it is difficult to reach the damage, because the tunnel is inoperative. “Depending on what we find in the tunnel we will give other deadlines.”
“If the high-speed situation is serious, the Cercanías situation is very serious,” the minister said. “Of the five lines, three are missing, C1, C2 and C3. We don’t have them, in C3, 45 kilometers are completely destroyed.” The other two lines, however, will try to recover as soon as possible, including the Euromed train to Barcelona.
Looking ahead to the coming weeks, Puente has indicated that the priority work involves “clearing the roads and removing the cars, not only is the Ministry of Transport involved, we have leadership from the Ministry of the Interior.” “Unfortunately there are people inside and the judicial authorities have to intervene.”
At the moment, there is no economic “calculation” of how much the impact of DANA on infrastructure may cost. “We are not going to skimp. We will deploy all the economic means that are necessary. We will make the effort that has to be made,” Puente has limited himself to indicating.
Nor did he want to get into controversies about when the notices reached the citizens. “I’m not going to go any further, there will be time.”
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