'Outpouring of unity in Spain as anger grows over slow response to floods'
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Hundreds of volunteers take up buckets and brooms in Valencia as the government bolsters its response to the devastating floods.

Summary

Amidst the devastation of the floods in Valencia, Spain, an outpouring of solidarity has emerged, with thousands of volunteers assisting in cleanup efforts. However, anger is growing over the slow response from authorities, with many residents feeling abandoned and criticizing the lack of adequate warning systems. The Spanish government has deployed additional troops and police to aid in relief efforts.

  • @barryameltonEnglish
    36•2 days ago

    Spanish here. We have an army emergency unit with 4000 people just for this.

    One needs to know that Spain is more of a federation than Germany or USA, as silly as it sounds, with regions being Autonomies that have more freedom from the central government than other places. This is a result of the end of the dictatorship in the 70s.

    Here, the regional government received alerts from the central weather agency (AEMET) at 7am. They ignored them, (they had already reduced the staff in the regional emergency department). The central weather agency kept sending them updates with record breaking numbers,and the regional government completely ignored them. The TV cameras started recording the tsunami disaster at ~7pm. The regional government sent the alarms at ~10pm, hours after people were already dead.

    Then, the regional government blocked the central govenrment from sending help, and didn’t ask themselves. By law, the regional government is the one that needs to make the decisions on how and when get the help and declare the emergency. They just didn’t. They are unfit for governing. They should go to jail.

    Since the regional government, corrupt, is from one side of the political spectrum, and the central one is from the other side of the spectrum, you get a lot of apologists saying that “is everyone’s fault, miscommunication”. Make no mistake. They are aware, and choose to misrepresent the issue.

    You can’t establish the precedent of breaking the law to bring out the army on the streets. Follow-up central governments may misuse it. Particularly in Spain, with all the history of terrorism, seccesionism, rising far-right, and a country divided by half politically that still hasn’t healed the mess left over by the untouched fascist dictatorship we had in the past.

    The end result is that in other countries the responsible people (the regional gov) would resign. Here, i doubt that will happen… And rinse and repeat.