The best of the human being

I’m not asking you how you are because I can imagine it. I am also horrified, at those death tolls that do not stop rising. Excited, by the solidarity of thousands of people who try to help. Desolate, because an advanced country, such as ours, has suffered a tragedy of this magnitude.

“You never think that these catastrophes that you see on TV could affect your loved ones,” writes María Rozalén, who has returned to Letur, the Albacete town where she spent her childhood, and where they are still searching for several missing people. In Letur and dozens of other municipalities, especially in Valencia. The death toll from DANA already exceeds 200 people. A terrible number that increases every day. Mothers. Parents. Children. Friends. Neighbors. Human beings define ourselves like this: by the ties that unite us to others. That is why each unjust death is like an amputation; something that leaves us all with a huge scar.

I see those thousands of people, armed with buckets, shovels and brooms, who go on foot as volunteers to the most affected areas, and I feel proud of our society. Of the human being, who has no other virtue greater than empathy; the one that unites us with others. Those people are my homeland. And those victims are too.

Every time I have to cover a tragedy like this as a journalist, the same thing happens to me. First, the informational tension prevails: the adrenaline of the news. You focus on your work, which is rarely more useful than in those moments; in trying to do it well. You spend several days like this, counting the dead, without being fully aware of what each lost life means. And there always comes a moment, two or three days later, when all that information that you have accumulated to be able to inform others overwhelms you. It surpasses you. It happened to me three days after 11M, for example. Or in the pandemic. It’s happening to me again today, as I write this letter to you. I can’t stop crying.

I also feel anger and indignation at those who try to take advantage of this tragedy for the most petty and base political use. Clean Hands, for example; On Thursday he filed a complaint in court against those responsible for the AEMET, whom he accuses of hundreds of reckless homicides. With DANA still active, and half of Spain waiting for torrential rains, this far-right organization has come up with nothing better than to destabilize the state meteorology agency. An institution that, furthermore, cannot be blamed for anything: of all the organizations involved in what happened, the AEMET was undoubtedly the one that worked best.

Attacking meteorologists, questioning their work, puts us all in danger. This is what scientists say, who warn of the enormous risk of undermining their credibility.

That is why what Alberto Núñez Feijóo has done in one of the meanest political moves that he is remembered for is also indecent. The opposition leader has joined in these criticisms of the AEMET because it is his way of blaming the Government for a management that was not his. It is not even the first time throughout his political career that Feijóo has tried to exploit the deaths of innocent people in his favor.

Equally unpresentable is what Santiago Abascal has done: accusing the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, of the disaster for the “criminal blowing up of dams.” It is a pure hoax, which the extreme right has been spreading for a long time. In Vox they do not seem to understand the difference between a real reservoir and a weir of one or two meters – like the ones that have been removed, because they were disused, but which are useless against floods. There is no large dam in the entire Valencian Community that has been eliminated. But these ultras don’t care about the truth.

DANA is still active, there are too many people still missing, there are much more serious problems to solve. But the day will come when it will be mandatory to do an autopsy on this tragedy. Not to throw the dead at the head: because I am very clear that not a single one of the public representatives who have managed this crisis wanted there to be a single victim. It will be essential to analyze what happened because it is the only way to learn, so that it never happens to us again.

There are several obvious questions on the table that, sooner or later, someone will have to answer. Especially by the Valencian Generalitat, which is the one that manages civil protection powers.

The most important: why did it take so many hours to warn the population not to travel on the roads?

The AEMET red alert for the Valencian Community – the maximum level of danger, there is no higher level – was on the table since 7:36 on Tuesday morning. Shortly after, at 8:04, the AEMET again warned that “the danger was extreme”, and asked citizens “not to travel unless strictly necessary.”

It is a warning that the Valencian Generalitat did not convey to citizens with the most powerful tool we have today – the mobile alert system – until more than twelve hours later: at 8:12 p.m. on Tuesday. For hundreds of people, that message on the phone reached them when they were already trapped in their cars, many of them with water up to their necks.

It is outrageous to remember the ridicule and criticism with which some right-wing politicians received this mobile alert system, which serves to save lives. The administration that sends that alarm does not know the numbers or any type of private data: only that you are connected to one of the cell towers in that region. There is therefore no risk to privacy or intimacy.

In September 2023, the Community of Madrid released these alarm messages, with the arrival of a powerful storm. The rains, in fact, were very heavy, although no deaths were reported. Despite this, the criticism was enormous. There was even a senior official from the Community of Madrid who explained in detail how to uninstall these alerts from your phone, encouraging people to do so. None of those who then irresponsibly criticized this alarm system have wanted to acknowledge their error.

Another question, also relevant: why did the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, assure on Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. that the storm would decrease in intensity at 6:00 p.m.? It was a wrong forecast, which does not agree with the information from the AEMET.

The agency said something else, very different: that the red alert was for the moment until 6:00 p.m., but that it could continue afterwards. A completely different message from the one Mazón conveyed.

The president of the Generalitat Valenciana also spread the video with this appearance on social networks. That same day, at dawn, he deleted the tweet.

But the problem is not only in the timely management of this crisis: in what could have been done and was not done this week.

Scientists are still cautious about linking this brutal cold drop to the climate crisis. It is still early to draw that conclusion, although the correlation between the increase in temperature in the Mediterranean and this type of phenomena, which are going to be more frequent, which are going to be more brutal, is quite evident.

A year ago, at elDiario.es, we published one of our data journalism specials. It was titled ‘Flood-prone Spain: more than a million homes are built in risk areas’. Pau Rodríguez, Victòria Oliveres and Raúl Sánchez cross-referenced the cadastre data with the National Flood Zone Mapping System. And so they were able to prove, street by street, all the buildings that are built in Spain in areas subject to flooding. It is the result of years and years of urban planning that ignored the most basic thing: that there are lands where you should not build. You can check for yourself if your house is in one of these areas.

This week we reviewed that data again. And the maps fit with what we have just experienced. 5% of the homes in Valencia are built in flood-prone areas. The Spanish Mediterranean coast is ground zero for irresponsible urbanism. That can cost lives.

I say goodbye for today, with the hope that the final death toll is lower than what we fear today. Hopefully we learn the lesson.

A hug,

Ignacio School

#human