Spain Deploys 1,700 Soldiers to Assist Deadly Storm Relief

(Bloomberg) -- Spain is deploying 1,700 soldiers to assist in relief efforts to rescue victims trapped by the disastrous storms that have killed more than 150 people in eastern Spain, as rain continues to spread in other parts of the country.

The government is sending 500 soldiers Friday to join the 1,200 already deployed in the eastern region of Valencia, where storms wreaked havoc this week, it said Thursday evening. So far, 155 people have been reported dead in the region, with at least three more having died in other regions. 

The storms are one of Spain’s worst natural disasters in living memory. Entire towns in the coastal region of Valencia were inaccessible for more than a day, with people sheltering on roofs and in cars. Many are still without running water and electricity. 

Such extreme storms, known in Spain as “danas,” are likely to become more common as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of heat waves. Record temperatures in the Mediterranean are also strengthening their effects.

World Weather Attribution, a scientific organization that studies how climate change influences extreme weather events, said this week’s rain in Valencia was 12% heavier and twice as likely compared to the cooler pre-industrial climate. 

“Historical weather observations indicate that one-day bursts of rain in this region are increasing as fossil fuel emissions heat the climate,” WWA said in a report. 

This week’s downpours hit towns up to 63 miles (101 kilometers) inland, with much of the damage centered outside the city of Valencia. Rainfall began on Monday, and reached peak intensity on Tuesday night. One town, Chiva, saw as much rain in eight hours as it normally gets in a year, according to the national weather agency. 

Questions are already being raised about why civil authorities waited so long to tell people to seek shelter, and why infrastructure such as roads, bridges and train lines was unable to withstand the downpours.

While weather services notified the public on Monday that big storms were likely to hit Valencia, the main emergency alert didn’t go out until Tuesday evening, when storms were already in full force.  

“The priority right now is to find the victims, the missing people, to calm the anxiety and anguish that their relatives may be suffering,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday on a visit to Valencia. The regional government has announced that it will earmark at least €250 million ($272 million) to help with the recovery.

The city of Valencia was spared the brunt of the damage thanks to river-rerouting measures that were implemented after a devastating storm in 1957 killed as many as 100 people. The outskirts of the city, where the worst-hit areas are located, did not have any such protection, said Luis Mediero, a professor of hydraulic engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

While Mediero said floods of this magnitude occur about every two centuries, he also blamed the damage on a decision to put up new buildings very close to a creek that flooded earlier this week.

“Maybe they were built where they shouldn’t have been,” he said.

Rains have subsided in Valencia but are moving, with less intensity, to other parts of the country. There is an orange warning for severe rain in the northeastern province of Tarragona, according to national forecaster Aemet, and a red warning in nearby Castellon. Yellow warnings for thunderstorms also extend through the Barcelona area and as far north as the border with France.

Valencia is Spain’s third-largest city, and the broader region is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. In recent decades, it has seen enormous amounts of beach-side real estate development, which experts now say was built without considering the risk of severe storms.

--With assistance from Clara Hernanz Lizarraga, Thomas Gualtieri and Brian Kahn.

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