Alfafal / Paiporta / AldaiaThe scene is dark. We manage to get inside the operative rescue teams in one of the most critical points, the underground car park of the Mercadona de Paiporta, close to Valencia. The exit ramp for the vehicles is now the descent to a huge pool, about 2,000 square meters. The water has become cloudy with mud and petrol. It is only lit by a line of LEDs that have fallen from the wall. A dozen colorful balloons with names float there. Adrian, Ada. As if someone had celebrated a birthday nearby that was interrupted by the storm. There is also an inflatable canoe floating with two firemen. One carries a long bamboo cane, with which he taps the floor of this two-meter-deep pool. And it hits something hard: there’s a car.
It’s time to take it out. Is there anyone inside? They don’t know. At this point in DANA’s ground zero there are firefighters who have come from Madrid, Zaragoza and even the Balearic Islands. The police have sent them to clear this parking lot because “there must be dead people”. In the morning, the Civil Guard divers did an exploration and detected possible victims, but nothing is clear. A good metaphor for the situation in the Valencian Country. So far, nothing has been found. Earlier, from the pirogue, they poked some “soft things” and became suspicious. They have been put in the worst case scenario, but they were plastic. Firefighters in the pirogue manage to tie the sunken car with a rope that connects it to an SUV. A mechanical wheel begins to pull it to the surface. it is white It’s a Seat. It’s an Ibiza. All the glass is broken. And the initial question is solved: there is no one inside.
But there are two meters of water left to pump out. The rate, according to Fire Department sources, is about 25 centimeters every two hours. It will be long. The rescue teams are surprised because the police have warned them that there could be people in there, but they are finding almost no cars. They do it spicy with the cane. It’s the only way as long as the water level doesn’t go down. If they submerge, the polluted water obstructs vision. Right now, everything is uncertainty. It is the Mercadona in Paiporta, but also in many other underground car parks, business or private, which are still denied water and which have also become huge swimming pools.
We must understand that the ravages of the DANA have created a mathematical formula that always has the same result: underground parking is equal to two meters of water that negate everything, including life. And just this Saturday they started the emptying work in many places. In Alfafar, also in the vicinity of Valencia, there are two car parks blocked by water in two streets. In one, the neighbors don’t miss anyone, but they can’t talk about the tenants who don’t live on the block. In the other, Civil Protection sources speak of eight missing. The car parks were the scene of many pains. A young man from Paiporta tells the story of a friend of his, Maria, who saw her parents disappear in front of her. They went down to the parking lot to take the cars out. The daughter and son, both minors, tried to shake their hands, but were unable to take it. Parking lots are still a potential new catastrophe to discover. The rapidity of the water surprised many people, and those who survived repeat two sentences: “We were not warned in time” and “Until recently no one had come to help us”.
Full to spill
When you ask the rescue teams about a car park where many lives may have been lost, many talk about the Mercadona de Paiporta, but also the Bonaire d’Aldaia shopping centre, one of the largest in Valencia. And the extent of the tragedy is still unknown. A command of the National Police gives a chilling figure: it is estimated that there are 600 vehicles in the underground car park. “We are waiting, but the prognosis is not good,” he says. The water continues to cover almost two meters of this gigantic car park, with more than 3,000 spaces. Since this Saturday, firefighters from everywhere and members of the Militarized Emergency Unit (UME) have been pumping the water to get it outside. “You can’t see anything yet,” repeat the officers. “It could be a tragedy,” admits a mall worker. That day he was there and managed to take refuge in an adjacent building. He says that there are missing workers and that on Tuesday, the day of the floods, he saw everything. Bodies floating, vehicles floating, people swimming and calling for help hours and hours after the big wave.
While the interior remains a murky unknown, the exterior is bleak. As in the Mercadona, the rotten stench of hundreds of food products thrown everywhere permeates the atmosphere. Everything is destroyed and no one is there. Only the sound of fire trucks pumping water breaks the silence. At the exit, some National Police officers stop the vehicle in which the ARA is traveling. They think we are thieves. They explain that looting in this shopping center is very common, especially at this time, when it is already night. Soon after, the agents give a chilling piece of information. It should be borne in mind that throughout the Valencian Country there have been a hundred arrests for looting, according to the latest balance sheet. There have been 63 in the Bonaire shopping center alone.
the cars
The landscape of the towns near Valencia is bleak. The destruction is total and not at all arbitrary, it is simply everywhere. Heavy rains in the interior led to a tsunami that exploded reaching the coast, where it wasn’t even raining. If in Mira, Utiel and Xiva the devastation was indescribable, in Alfafar, Paiporta and Massanassa it is even more so. More cars, more mud, more wrecks and more victims. Neighbors experienced scenes that will never go away, like falling asleep knowing that you threw ropes and sheets from the balcony to people who were swept away by the current and were never able to catch. Isabel explains it, still affected because there were children among these people. Or wake up with corpses in the middle of the street, or under a car. This is explained by Sergio, who adds that until now it was the neighbors themselves who removed the hidden bodies. There are still cars to open. Some have an X marked, or an R (for registered) written on them. It means they have already been opened.
Every day new misfortunes are written and there doesn’t seem to be any stopping for now. According to police sources, this Saturday a man first noticed that there was something lying on the ground downstairs. It was a corpse. In the street next door, according to the same sources, some neighbors were missing the resident of the basement and tried to access his flat. They found him dead.
