“In Aldaia and Xirivella we are abandoned, there are only volunteers, we need the Army”

Four days after catastrophic DANA that has devastated four regions of the province of Valenciathe residents of some municipalities They raise their voices in the face of the lack of help in their localities. It is the case of Xirivella and Aldaiavery close to the capital but out of focus these days, and they don’t understand why. “In Aldaia and Xirivella we are abandoned, only volunteers come here with brooms. What is needed is for the Army to comea unit of sappers to open the streets and remove the cars, something that the town’s farmers are doing with tractors. “Let a transmission unit come to return the coverage, which there is none, right now I am in the middle of the orchard to be able to have it.”

The request for help, between lament, sadness and anger, is Xavi Masedaa 40-year-old teacher at the Platero y yo school in Aldaia, who has also been seriously affected by the torrent of water that devastated the town. This Xirivella neighbor’s voice breaks when he remembers the days he has lived since that fateful Tuesday.

“Water pumps are needed,” he says, to empty garages and stop the possible spread of infections, humidity, insects and problems in buildings. “I’ve had the garage full of water for five days.we have six meters. The walls are falling down, the smell is unbearable, the humidity, the insects, it is totally unhealthy, no one helps us or gives us a bomb water. We have a small one and the neighbors are standing guard because they have tried to steal it from us,” he laments.

Apart from the residents themselves and the volunteers who came from the city and other locations, no one else has come to his rescue. “We are left by the hand of God, no one passes, not Civil Protection, neither in Xirivella nor in Aldaia. Only the neighbors help each other,” he explains.

The nightmare began Tuesday afternoon. “We were at home and my mother-in-law called me telling me that the water was coming from the part of the Xirivella Town Hall where she lives.” His first action, like that of so many other neighbors, was try to save his car and that of his wife. “I went down and indeed on the next street, where all the ground floors are, all the neighbors were coming out and lifting the traps” from the sewers. “I took my car and my wife’s car out of the garage and when I was looking where I could put it, the water was already on it and I went up to my house, on the second floor,” he says.

From that moment on he could only watch “in disbelief”, leaning out of the window, how the town was flooding. His voice breaks when he remembers it: “These days have been a disaster, abandoned, trying to get something to empty the garage and walking to my school, which is also my house, in Aldaia, which is destroyed. We are a mess.” , he concludes.