The passage of a DANA through the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands, which this Tuesday put nine communities on alert due to intense rains, storms and strong gusts of wind, has left at least seven people missing in the province of Albacete and the Valencian Community, as confirmed by the Delegation of the Community Board in Albacete to elDiario.es Castilla-La Mancha. The floods caused by heavy rainfall have also forced the circulation of high-speed trains between Valencia and Madrid to be cut off.
The Albacete municipality of Letur is one of the main affected. There, a huge flood has flooded the municipality, causing the disappearance of six people. Sources from the Provincial Council confirm that firefighters are working in the area, where strong hailstorms have also been recorded, with other municipalities affected in the Sierra del Segura.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has shared in X that he is following “closely and with concern” the damage caused by the passage of DANA. Sánchez has reported that all emergency services, civil protection, the Military Emergency Unit (UME), as well as members of the Police and Civil Guard are displaced by the storm. The leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has expressed his “gratitude” to the emergency services. “My solidarity with those affected and my wish that they find the missing soon,” he wrote in X.
Two of the missing people in Letur are two municipal workers whose trace has been lost after their vehicle was swept away by the flood that crossed the urban area of the municipality this Tuesday. The Civil Guard has confirmed that they are searching for them with the support, among other means, of drones with thermal cameras.
The Albacete Provincial Council has warned that Letur has been the town “most hit” by the storm in the province. The SEPEI firefighters have moved seven vehicles and fifteen personnel to the town, including the Underwater Rescue Unit, which is in the area to “address” the consequences of the storm: people isolated in their homes, vehicles swept away, severe damage in infrastructure, or “totally flooded” streets.
The delegate of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha in Albacete, Pedro Antonio Ruiz Santos, who has traveled to the town, has explained to the EFE agency that there are difficulties with the telephone lines, part of the urban area is without electricity and the Provincial Council has had to carry vats to make up for the lack of drinking water.
As explained by the Provincial Council of Albacete in a statement, the problem has not been the rain that fell in the town, but in the head of the basin, where almost 200 liters per square meter have been reached, which has caused the stream has overflowed and the waterspout has crossed the urban area.
Floods in the province of Valencia force the UME to intervene
The passage of the DANA through the province of Velència, with torrential rainfall in some areas, has caused several floods that have required the intervention of the Military Emergency Unit (UME). In addition, the Emergency Coordination Center has issued a special hydrological alert notice due to the increase in flow in the Magro River, which could reach a thousand cubic meters per second downstream of the Forata reservoir (Yátova, Valencia) as a consequence of the accumulated precipitation, as warned by the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation.
This flow implies that widespread overflows can occur in the areas close to the river and, therefore, it is advisable to keep the population away from the areas close to the river and not approach the banks of the rivers and active ravines. The warning has been notified to all the municipalities bordering the Magro River – including Utiel, which has been experiencing flooding since this afternoon due to its overflowing – and the Júcar River from Algemesí to the mouth in Cullera, according to Generalitat Emergencies.
Railway lines, flights affected and ports closed
The situation in Albacete has forced the suspension of circulation on the Valencia-Madrid high-speed line as it passes through this province. The trains have been stopped at the Albacete junction since 5:54 p.m. due to the accumulation of water between the towns of Siete Aguas and Chiva due to the flooding of the Torrent tunnel. Adif has confirmed that since then no train has departed from the València Joaquín Sorolla station.
A high-speed train (AVE) that was traveling between Malaga and Madrid with 291 passengers on board has suffered a “bogie” – a part of the train to which the axles are attached to the wheels – leave the track from the front cabin to his passage through the Malaga town of Álora, where heavy rains have been recorded in recent hours, without any injuries.
Adif has also reported that the accumulation of water in the railway infrastructure has forced the suspension of circulation on the València-Gandia-Xàtiva route, in the suburban core of València, and the medium-distance trains that circulate through said stations are also affected. .
In addition, since Tuesday afternoon, the train service between Barcelona and Valencia has been interrupted due to the fall of a vehicle on the infrastructure between Nules and Les Palmes, on the Sagunt-Castelló route, and the strong storms in the area, according to the organization has reported.
Aena has reported the diversion of six flights bound for Valencia to other airports and the cancellation of another three departures. The Port Authority, for its part, has also closed the ports of Valencia and Sagunt.
The effects of DANA in Andalusia
The Community of Andalusia has issued an orange warning this Tuesday in the provinces of Almería, Granada and Málaga due to rainfall that will range between 30 and 50 liters per square meter in 1 hour and also an orange warning in Almería due to strong storms; In Córdoba and Jaén the yellow alert persists for rainfall of 20 liters in one hour. In Malaga, the intense rains have caused multiple incidents, such as the derailment of a high-speed train, which left no one injured, while the flood caused by the flooding of the river in the Guadalhorce valley has swept away dozens of vehicles. 112 has raised the warning for rain in the Costa del Sol and Guadalhorce region to red level until three in the afternoon.
In Almería, the storms have caused great damage in their path, especially in the municipality of El Ejido, where heavy hail the size of “ping-pong balls” has fallen that would have affected some 11,300 hectares according to the Union of Small Farmers and Winners (UPA). In total, more than 240 emergencies due to the storm have already been registered in eastern Andalusia due to the storm with incidents such as flooded basements, basements, garages and roads.
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