Friday, June 14, 2024, 00:46
The danger had not ended yesterday. The structure of some houses or buildings, as well as the trees in different locations, were stressed after having been wet by the storm of recent days, which multiplies the risk of collapse due to the sudden change in temperature yesterday. “Even after the storm has passed, they may be very weakened and suffer a collapse,” the general director of Community Security and Emergencies, Ricardo Villalba, warned LA VERDAD yesterday.
This department of the Ministry of the Interior estimates that during this extreme meteorological episode, almost a hundred rescues of people have been carried out, both in vehicles and in homes. The latest interventions occurred yesterday morning, when three people were trapped in a vehicle in Torre Pacheco. “With the level of incidents recorded, not having to regret personal injuries is key,” celebrates the person in charge of Emergencies. The final balance shows 600 calls due to the storm to the 112 Emergency Coordination Center, of which 350 occurred in the capital municipality and the rest between Las Torres de Cotillas, Molina de Segura and other towns in the Vega Media, as well as like Los Alcázares.
After the flood plan in the Region was deactivated yesterday afternoon, the Emergency services entered the “normalization and recovery” phase. That is, intervene in the collapse of old buildings, cleaning up facades, fallen trees, damage to public buildings (some schools were still fixing their classes yesterday), restoring basic services, checking sewers, removing sludge or guaranteeing circulation on the roads. cut off by the rains. The largest number of interventions focused on water drainage, elimination of damages on public roads and rescues, some of which were “complex and delicate” carried out by Emergencies, Firefighters and local police.
The actions yesterday focused on restoring electricity in several areas of Las Torres de Cotillas
“We are offering municipalities all the support services they need to help them normalize this situation,” emphasizes Villalba. The actions yesterday focused on restoring electricity in several areas of Las Torres de Cotillas, a territory that also suffered significant waterlogging and flooding of garages.
Cover losses
The regional Executive will request the declaration of a catastrophic zone for all municipalities affected by the episodes of intense rains this week with the intention of covering the losses in the primary sector. The Minister of Agriculture, Sara Rubira, presented yesterday in the Government Council a provisional report on the damage caused by the storms. In total, both the rains and hail affected 3,400 hectares of crops until Tuesday, spoiling 23,000 tons of agricultural products, especially stone fruit, orange, almond, olive and vineyard. This represents approximate losses of about 20 million euros.
The damage from this Wednesday’s storm continues to be evaluated, but it is estimated that in Cieza and its surroundings there would be between 800 and 1,000 hectares of peach, apricot and nectarine crops affected, which would bring the damaged land to more than 4,000 hectares. In Calasparra, the municipality with the most damage so far, there are 1,230 hectares of crops ruined.
The CHS had to divert more water between the Ojós and La Pedrera dam due to the rising flow of the Segura river
The rainfall was such that the flooding of the Segura River forced a larger flow than usual to be diverted from the Ojós reservoir to La Pedrera (Alicante) through the post-transfer channel. Specifically, at a rate of 23 cubic meters per second. The Los Rodeos flood reservoir has retained one hectometer due to the rains. This declaration of a catastrophic area has also been requested or will be requested in the coming days, by several municipalities affected by this meteorological episode such as Las Torres de Cotillas, Calasparra or Los Alcázares.
30 liters in ten minutes
The intense rainfall, accompanied in some places by hail and strong gusts of wind, left a desolate panorama in a land afflicted by drought. The State Meteorological Agency recorded between 60 and 50 liters in the Vega Media and the Segura valley on Wednesday afternoon, but most of these volumes fell only in half an hour, which caused overflows or floods in the urban boulevards of the north. of Murcia that caused so much damage.
“The Guadalupe meteorological station, where Aemet is based, has already recorded the wettest June in the entire historical series,” explains Víctor Ruiz Álvarez, spokesperson for the FrostSE meteorological association. There are more than 90 liters between Monday and Wednesday, a record that is difficult to see. “These episodes are common at the end of spring and early summer, but with global warming they are becoming more frequent and torrential,” explains Álvarez. The expert believes that the storms have not broken the drought in the Spanish Southeast “because it has accumulated a lot of deficit”, but they have reduced it and that “is important for the vegetation and the forest mass” for the summer season.
Despite everything, torrentiality has not been a characteristic in most of the showers that have fallen in much of the Region these days. “The rains have brought a beneficial amount of water to the Guadalentín Valley, where persistent rainfall has been recorded but without damage.” The same thing happens in the Northwest that, although it has registered accumulated 180 liters since the weekend in Moratalla, the water is a blessing for dryland crops and forests.
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