The floods caused by torrential rains in Valencia and Albacete are already the deadliest of the 21st century. While the search for people continues, provisional figures indicate that the floods have caused at least 95 deaths, which multiplies by four the worst record so far: 24 fatalities in 2018, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Floods are the most costly natural disaster (excluding heat) in Spain. Both in human lives and economic damages. From 2000 to 2023, 233 deaths due to floods had been confirmed.
DANA has left very high records in the province of València where 300 l/m2 were exceeded in the area between Utiel and Chiva, according to Aemet (in fact, in the town of Chiva 491 l/m2 were collected in eight hours) . “Practically what can rain in an entire year,” the Agency reports, concentrated in less than half a day.
The most tragic years, apart from 2018, have been 2019 with 20 deaths, 2015 with 17, 2012 with 15 deaths and the year 2000 with 14 people dead. In 1996 (the year of the flood that devastated the Biescas campsite in Huesca, the number reached 110 fatalities, according to the Ministry of the Interior).
More frequency and more destructive capacity
Ernesto Rodríguez Camino, senior meteorologist of the State, has told the Science Media Center that “in general terms what we know is that, in a context of climate change, this type of intense and exceptional rainfall phenomena, rare, are going to be increasingly more frequent and more intense and, therefore, destructive.”
The also member of the Spanish Meteorological Association explains that the new climatic context is blowing up the return periods of violent episodes: “Events of this type that, before, many decades passed between one another, can now be found “We have them more frequently and their destructive capacity is greater.”
However, what is being proven is that, with a warmer planet due to the greenhouse effect of gases emitted by humans, episodes of torrential storms have become more frequent in Spain in general (and the Mediterranean area in particular. ) and, at the same time, that these episodes are also more intense: up to four times more than 50 years ago.
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