Thousands of people remain without power while communications services are resurrected

Little by little, the network infrastructures that have suffered in large areas of Valencia during the dramatic DANA episodewhich has killed a hundred peoplealthough the repair work is being complicated in certain areas.

Around 78,000 people remain without electricity supply in the province of Valencia as a result of the storm, after more than 77,000 affected people have recovered. The service will be restored as access allows it, Iberdrola sources inform Europa Press.

Thus, i-DE, the group’s distribution company, has managed to restore the electricity supply to half of the 155,000 initially affected in the province. In addition, it has 50 generating sets to connect to the grid as soon as conditions allow.

The passage of the DANA through Valencia has caused incidents in the electricity supply, especially in the area of Catadauas well as in the towns of Carlet, Montserrat, Catadau, Montroy, Benimodo, Utiel, Bunyol and surrounding areas. Late this Tuesday night, the supply to municipalities in the region of L’Horta South (Catarroja, Paiporta, Massanassa, Picanya and Alfafar, among others) after the overflowing of nearby ravines.

Telephony and internet

For its part, EFE informs that the telecommunications companies Telefónica, Vodafone Spain and Masorange have registered various incidents in the Valencian Country and the south of Spain as a result of DANA and are working to restore the service completely, always with one priority: reestablishment of connection in health and emergency centers.

Sources of Telephone They point out that they have deployed a massive reinforcement in the Valencian Country to repair damage caused by floods and power outages as a result of the storm. The company has sent additional brigades to the affected areas, as well as generating equipment and satellite phones, and is working in collaboration with the Generalitat Valenciana and the Military Emergency Unit (UME) so that technicians can reach the flooded plants.

In the case of Vodafone Spainits network has suffered fiber cuts affecting its fixed and mobile network in the Valencian Country and they continue to restore the service to 100%. Furthermore, the company has activated unlimited data on customers’ mobile phonesboth from Vodafone and Lowi, in this community to facilitate communications for those affected.

Also Masorange works in collaboration with the State security forces and emergency services to recover total normality of communications. It is expected that today the critical alerts will disappear and the situation in those areas will begin to stabilize, which would allow them to recover normality in terms of mobile and landline availability.

Drinking water

For their part, public health experts have called for calm this Wednesday because the supply of drinking water is more than guaranteed and the risk with water associated with torrential floods such as those caused by DANA in the south and east of Spain is “of drowning, not of infecting you.”

“What we have seen running through the streets is not what we are going to drink at this moment,” he points out. EFE the epidemiologist Oscar Zurriagaoutgoing president of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE), who appeals to the importance of following the information from official channels, which are the ones that will inform where there may be “local” and specific problems with supplies.

In this he agrees Hector Tejeroresponsible for the Health and Climate Change Observatory of the Ministry of Health: “We must have total confidence in civil protection information and emergency services”, in addition to “common sense”, because the problems that floods cause in developing countries are more complicated than those that appear in Spain.