The severe flooding in eastern Spain, especially in Valencia, the third largest city in the country, had left destruction in its wake. More than 200 have been killed, and many more are missing.
Homes have been wrecked, and businesses. Thousands of cars have been swept away and become barricades along with the rubble of homes and offices. Businesses have been wiped out.
It has become evident that the local authorities and those in Madrid, the national capital, could not move with the speed required to help the people. In Valencia there were not enough rescue workers. The Spanish army had to rush in troops, 5,000 of them, to help clear the mess, rescue the people and get the dead bodies out. The army has dispatched another 2,500 troops to Valencia.
It is not surprising that the people of Valencia, helpless, homeless and reduced to penury, are angry with the authorities that they had not moved fast enough to help them out. So, when King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faced an irate crowd, Sanchez had to be taken away, even as King Felipe and Queen Letizia talked to the people as they vented their anger, and even hurled abuses. Felipe later said in his X post that it was natural for people to be angry and he understands their emotions. It will take many more weeks, and perhaps even months, before normalcy returns to Valencia. The financial damage seems to run into billions of euros according to estimates of regional authorities. They are demanding financial assistance from the national government in Madrid.
But extreme weather events of the kind that hit Valencia through the cataclysmic flooding are going to be part of the seasonal calendar. The people and the government have to prepare themselves and be ready to face the disasters. During the summer, parts of Spain suffered from shortage of living space and water because of the tourist onrush which left the local people overwhelmed.
Authorities were pressured to close the gates as it were and keep the tourists out. The tourist season had created a scarcity of human and natural resources. The flood in Valencia is a natural disaster compared to the man-made one of the flood of tourists. Spain is clearly unprepared to face both the developments. The people and authorities cannot any more say that they were taken unawares by these disasters. This is going to be the norm as the years pass by. And it will deepen because these developments contribute to the crisis of climate change, excess heat, excess precipitation and its cumulative impact on the lives of the people.
This is not an issue that concerns Spain. It concerns the whole of Europe as well as other countries and continents. There has to be a plan to confront the challenge of climate change. It is something that cannot be avoided or postponed. It has to be confronted now.
It is indeed the case that in many countries, governments are tardy in their response to crises. The bureaucratic tendency to hesitate to act remains quite entrenched. That is why, the outburst of anger of the people against the King and the prime minister in Valencia looks justified. And King Felipe is the first to acknowledge the legitimacy of the people’s anger. Anger cannot be an end in itself. It should serve as a spur to action. It looks like the climate crisis is reaching a critical point when expression of anger is getting to be real at the state of affairs, and governments are shaken out of their complacence. It is a turning point.