The official death toll crosses 150 as authorities search for more survivors in Spain’s deadliest flash floods in decades.
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What happened?
It’s the rainy season in South East Spain. People prepared for annual rainfall but received what people describe as mud tsunamis. The flash floods rose to 8 feet or more. On Tuesday, It tore through their homes, garages left them devastated. Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía seem to have borne the brunt of the disaster.
What is Gota fria or Cold drop?
It is a high-altitude weather pattern or system that is often seen during this time in Spain. It is widely known as DANA. When cold air from the coastal region of Spain meets the warm air from the Mediterranean Sea, it creates rain clouds rapidly.
While this is a phenomenon that is naturally occurring near the Mediterranean Sea, the effects seem to have been intensified by Climate change. Europe has been getting hotter in the past decade. All of that much hotter air has created a climate change-accelerated natural disaster.
Rescue missions
The government immediately deployed rescue workers and a portion of the Spanish Army to safely transport the public in all the affected regions. While the rescue teams have found 158 bodies, there are still many more missing people out there. There are ongoing operations to find survivors. The Spanish government has sent in forensic experts to help identify the victims.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish Monarch, King Felipe have expressed their condolences to the families. King Felipe has declared a three-day National Mourning for all the victims.
Authorities alert the public in affected areas
The authorities have alerted the public to not use the flooded roads to allow the rescue workers to access every part of the affected areas. The alert extends to any vehicles as weather authorities expect more rain.
Alerts issued but too late: Devastating floods in seconds
Despite rainy weather and severe rain alerts, no one anticipated floods that tore through towns in seconds. Climate change aggravated a disaster that could have been avoided by proper human intervention.
The failure to anticipate accelerated natural disasters seems to be a common pattern of human error across the world. We just witnessed the consequence of one in Wayanad district of Kerala.
While Spain mourns and recovers from this tragic disaster, humans are taught yet another lesson to account for climate change. More study and research needs to be done in this field to understand this new form of global threat. We need to take action as a species to save some semblance of normalcy for our future generations.
