Two years on, Valencia is still demanding answers for 234 dead in the 2024 flooding – and blaming Sánchez rather than local Popular Party leaders

Two years ago some 130,000 protesters marched through the streets of Valencia in Spain to demand accountability for the delayed response to the devastating floods that struck the region on 29 October 2024. “In 2024, with the tools we have, it is unacceptable that 234 people should have died from a spell of heavy rain in Spain,” said Victoria Roselló, the chief meteorologist for À Punt, Valencia’s national television station. Since scientists had seen the storm coming five days in advance, “it was especially frustrating for those who knew what was going on to have to stand by and watch the horrors unfold.” Roselló had been sharing what was coming on TV weather forecasts – but there was no official warning from authorities until lives had already been lost. “To me, it has been inexplicable how, with the data they had on the table, they did not take the decisions they should have taken, which was to warn the population, especially those at greatest risk,” the meteorologist told EUobserver. Like many European countries, Spain has a phone alert system that notifies everyone within a certain radius to protect themselves from natural disasters like wildfires. Yet why this was not used to warn about the deadly floods still remains unexplained. “The natural disaster could not have been prevented, but the loss of life certainly could have been, without a doubt. If only people had been warned that an avalanche — a tsunami of water — was coming their way.” 'There was plenty of scope to have acted differently,' said Joan Bertomeu, the criminal lawyer leading the investigation on regional authorities' delayed response EPA/ANA ESCOBAR The episode was one in a chain of regional tragedies, now including the high-speed train collision on 28 October in Toledo, and the previous one from January in Córdoba, to have hit the credibility of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sànchez’s government.