‘Still angry’: more than 50,000 protest in Valencia on first anniversary of floods | Spain

More than 50,000 people took to the streets of the eastern Spanish city of Valencia on Saturday to commemorate the first anniversary of last year’s deadly floods and condemn authorities’ response to the disaster.

Demonstrators, many carrying photos of victims, called on regional leader Carlos Mazón to resign over what they said was a slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades.

“People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old public servant who attended the event with her husband and two young daughters.

“Why weren’t people evacuated? It’s incomprehensible,” he added.

The Mazón administration was heavily criticized for not sending flood warnings to mobile phones until 20:11 on October 29, 2024, when flooding began in some places.

This comes more than 12 hours after the national weather agency issued its highest warning level for showers.

People told Spanish media that by the time they received the warning, muddy water had surrounded their cars, flooded the streets and flowed into their homes.

Floods hit 78 municipalities, mostly on the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia, causing 229 deaths in the region. A body was found as recently as Tuesday.

Despite the warning signs, Mazón went out for lunch with a journalist for hours on the day of the flood and also appeared in photos tweeted by his staff receiving sustainable tourism certification.

“Mazón wasn’t where he was supposed to be that day, he wasn’t up to the task,” said Gonzalo Bosch, a 38-year-old accountant from Paiporta, one of the town’s worst-hit areas.

As demonstrators marched through the streets of Spain’s third-largest city, they held banners with messages calling on Mazón to resign or even imprison him.

Under Spain’s highly decentralized system, disaster management is the responsibility of the regional government.

But Mazón, a member of the conservative People’s Party (PP), which opposes the Socialist-led national government, argued that his administration did not have the information needed to warn people sooner.

In a poll published in national daily El País earlier this month, 71% of Valencia residents said they thought Mazón should resign.

Almost half of the people who died in last year’s devastating floods in Valencia were aged 70 or over; this was also emphasized by some protesters.

They accuse authorities of failing to protect the region’s most vulnerable residents.

Rosa Alvarez, president of an association representing flood victims and among those leading the march, blames the regional government’s inaction for the death of her 80-year-old father.

He said he was about to drown after floodwaters destroyed one of the walls of his home in Catarroja when his mobile phone alarm went off.

“Every minute counted that day. When the alarm went off, people had already drowned or were in real danger,” the 51-year-old social worker told AFP.

“All of these deaths were completely preventable,” he added.

Campaigners have held regular demonstrations against Mazón, mostly on or around monthly anniversaries of the disaster.

Anton Losada, a professor of politics at the University of Santiago de Compostela, told AFP that the PP’s national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, sided with Mazón despite his unpopularity because “he had no other choice.”

Losada told AFP that Mazón’s resignation would trigger early elections in Valencia, which would likely be “catastrophic” for the PP and Feijóo’s leadership.

The party added that it hoped a successful restructuring effort would help restore its reputation.

On the first anniversary of the tragedy, a state commemoration ceremony will be held in Valencia on Wednesday, attended by King Felipe and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.