{"id":47142,"date":"2025-10-26T09:22:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T09:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=47142"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:17:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:17:50","slug":"valencia-protest-50000-took-to-the-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2025\/10\/26\/valencia-protest-50000-took-to-the-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Valencia Protest: 50,000 took to the street"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 50,000 people took to the streets of Spain\u2019s eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of last year\u2019s deadly floods and denounce the authorities\u2019 handling of the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on the regional leader, Carlos Maz\u00f3n, to resign over what they say was the slow response to one of Europe\u2019s deadliest natural disasters in decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cars<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are still really angry,\u201d said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old public servant who took part with her husband and two young daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy weren\u2019t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maz\u00f3n\u2019s administration has been heavily criticised for not sending out flood alerts to mobile phones until 8.11pm on 29 October 2024, when flooding had already started in some places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was more than 12 hours after the national weather agency had issued its highest alert level for torrential rains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People told Spanish media that by the time they received the alert, muddy water was already surrounding their cars, submerging streets and pouring into their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The floods hit 78 municipalities, mostly in the southern outskirts of the city of Valencia, killing 229 people in the region. One body was found as recently as Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the warning signs, Maz\u00f3n went ahead with an hours-long lunch with a journalist on the day of the floods, also appearing in photos tweeted by his staff receiving a sustainable tourism certification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaz\u00f3n wasn\u2019t where he should have been that day, he wasn\u2019t up to the task,\u201d said another protester, Gonzalo Bosch, a 38-year-old accountant from Paiporta, one of the towns worst hit by the floods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Demonstrators<\/a>
Demonstrators protest against Carlos Mazon and his regional vice-president, Susana Camarero. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Jordan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Demonstrators held signs with messages calling on Maz\u00f3n to resign or even be imprisoned as they made their way through the streets of Spain\u2019s third-largest city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Spain\u2019s highly decentralised system, disaster management is the regional administration\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Maz\u00f3n, a member of the conservative Popular party (PP) which sits in opposition to the Socialist-led national government, has argued his administration did not have the information needed to warn people sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a poll published earlier this month in the national daily El Pa\u00eds, 71% of residents of Valencia said they felt Maz\u00f3n should resign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost half of the people who died in last year\u2019s catastrophic floods in Valencia were 70 or older, a fact highlighted by some protesters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They accuse the authorities of having failed to protect the region\u2019s most vulnerable residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosa Alvarez, who heads an association representing victims of the floods and was among those leading the march, blames the regional government\u2019s inaction for her 80-year-old father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time it issued the mobile phone alert, he was already drowning after flood waters knocked down one of the walls of his home in Catarroja, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery minute counted that day. When the alarm sounded people had already drowned or were in real danger,\u201d the 51-year-old social worker told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll those deaths were completely preventable,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaigners have staged regular demonstrations against Maz\u00f3n often on or near the monthly anniversaries of the disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An<\/a>
Protesters in Valencia on the first anniversary of the floods. Photograph: Jos\u00e9 Jordan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The PP\u2019s national leader, Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, has stood by Maz\u00f3n despite his unpopularity because \u201che has no other choice\u201d, Anton Losada, a politics professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela, told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maz\u00f3n\u2019s resignation would trigger early elections in Valencia, which would probably be \u201ccatastrophic\u201d for the PP and Feij\u00f3o\u2019s leadership, Losada told AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The party is hoping a successful reconstruction effort will help restore its standing, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A state memorial ceremony will take place on the first anniversary of the tragedy on Wednesday in Valencia, attended by King Felipe and the prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 50,000 people took to the streets of Spain\u2019s eastern city of Valencia on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of last year\u2019s deadly floods and denounce the authorities\u2019 handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on the regional leader, Carlos Maz\u00f3n, to resign over what they say was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":47143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[12268,12270,5520,9331,10000,7234,5241,4066,6621,12617,5787,2264,10598,6654,6030,10454,9974,12485,12187,1565,7039,11375,5424,3805,3174,10313,5561,11171,7398,8297,12650,4293,10480,11325,11610,5471,6262,214,12269,1742,12267,9539,8869,9085,594,5140],"class_list":["post-47142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-alberto-nunez-feijoo","tag-carlos-mazon","tag-cars","tag-city","tag-conservative","tag-death","tag-died","tag-el","tag-europe","tag-evacuated","tag-flood","tag-government","tag-homes","tag-jordan","tag-journalist","tag-killing","tag-leadership","tag-lunch","tag-n","tag-pedro","tag-phone","tag-phones","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-professor","tag-protest","tag-protesters","tag-rains","tag-resign","tag-social-worker","tag-spain","tag-spanish","tag-street","tag-torrential-rains","tag-tourism","tag-tragedy","tag-university","tag-university-of-santiago-de-compostela","tag-valencia","tag-valencia-protest","tag-victims","tag-water","tag-weather","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47144,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47142\/revisions\/47144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}