The new channel of the Turia avoids a tragedy in Valencia like the one in 1957, in which 300 people died

The Turia changed its course in 1973 after the 1957 catastrophe, in which 300 people died due to the river overflowing. Luis Mediero, who is a professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the Madrid Polytechnic, explains to ABC that “thanks to the works that modified the river, a catastrophe like the one that occurred in the 1950s has been avoided,” he says.

«The efforts of those engineers have worked, because with these rains, the flow would have overflowed the river and the urban area would have been flooded. Now the river surrounds the city and the water goes directly to the sea,” explains Mediero.

The social and economic catastrophe in 1957 was of such magnitude that the Franco Government had no choice but to adopt important decisions. Nine months after the flood, the so-called Southern Solution was approved to divert the river from the city: a new channel about 12 kilometers long and 175 meters wide, capable of draining 5,000 cubic meters per second into a new mouth, three kilometers south of the existing one. The works began in 1964 and ended – without completing the initial program, which included other hydraulic sanitation infrastructure – in 1973.