Outpouring of unity in Spain as anger grows over slow response to floods
Outpouring of unity in Spain as anger grows over slow response to floods
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.
I will never understand why these situations are not dealt with by the military on large scale. These kinds of things seem like ideal exercises for the military as well. Large scale quick mobilisation, crisis and chaos all around. Need for lots of heavy equipment, tents, medical, food..
If the optics is an issue buy them orange coveralls for these kind of things.
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.
Thanks for this breakdown, I can see why people are protesting. The situation is fucked
Whoa.. TIL.
Spaniard here, citizens are really pissed at the government for not having deployed the army in time and in vast numbers… it truly is a shame how inefficiently politicians are managing the situation, they’re mostly focused on blaming each other and pointing fingers, surprising, isn’t it?
Because most people see the military as aggressively hostile. The last thing they want is to see their own country’s military marching through the streets for whatever reason. Especially in Spain, where it has a bit of a nasty history.
That too I understand. Hence no military dress, but the equipment.. temporary bridger, pop up medical facilities, engineering corps, so much to gain too.
So I think it would be worthwhile to see in what form this can be done. As the scale of what happened in Spain is just mind boggling. The picture of the entire street blocked with a wall of cars piled 2 stories high.. so many dead.. more homeless..
This will be the template of what is to come for all of us all over the world.
Climate caused catastrophes and instead of working together, having patience with government, trying to figure out solutions, working cooperatively ..... we'll all protest, fight, get angry with one another and make the situation worse for one another.
We won't be working together to deal with the problem or admitting to one another that we are causing the climate catastrophes or doing anything significant to lessen the effects or even change our behaviour ... we'll just protest our governments for not having magical instant solutions to impossible problems.