Mass Deaths in Valencia after Flooding and Political Failure

Last Tuesday evening as thousands of people were commuting home from work and many others continued at their jobs in supermarkets, cinemas, factories, beauty shops and restaurants, unprecedented flash floods hit the Valencia region.

That morning at 8am the Spanish Met office issued its highest warning level of maximum red, warning of extreme danger. But the right-wing regional government of Carlos Mazon failed to issue a civil protection alert to residents’ mobile phones until 8.15 pm that evening (a full 12 hours later)- by which time the worst of the flooding had already hit.

Serious questions are being raised about Mazon’s disastrous emergency management as rescue operations continue amid mass destruction and death. The death toll currently stands at 207 but is likely to rise substantially in the coming days while it remains far from clear when any degree of normal life can return to the region. Today on Sobremesa podcast we talk about the tragic events this week along Spain’s Eastern coast and the political failures and fallout from the floods.