The Foreign Office has CHANGED its travel advice for Spain – with UK tourists warned. Amid ongoing floods in the European Union destination, the Foreign Office is urging travellers to “check the latest warnings”, as the country is hit hard.
It said: “Severe weather and flooding is affecting many areas along the Mediterranean coastline of Spain. In particular, many parts of the Valencia region and Castilla La Mancha continue to be severely affected by recent flooding. Journeys may be affected.”
Meanwhile, Spain’s meteorological agency AEMET announced on November 14: “Red warnings have been deactivated in the provinces of Malaga and Valencia. Orange warnings (significant danger) remain active due to very heavy rain in areas of the provinces of Huelva, Cadiz, Seville, Alicante and Valencia.”
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Spanish forecasters are warning of “heavy and persistent rain”. Antonio Sanz, the Regional Government’s Minister of the Presidency, explained: “We have not evacuated entire towns, but rather specific areas linked to the riverbank.
“This decision has been communicated to the government of Spain in order to receive collaboration from the state security forces and bodies.” A total of 224 people lost their lives – all but eight of them in Valencia – when torrential rains and floods hit eastern, central and southern parts of Spain on Tuesday 29 October, drowning people in their homes and cars and sending torrents of water through cities, towns and villages.
Carlos Mazón, a member of Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP), has faced calls to resign over his response to the worst natural disaster in the country’s recent history. “You can’t learn from the past without knowing what really happened,” he said.
“The people of Valencia have the right to know what happened … We need to know why our prior experience of this kind of situation – and why the protocols that have been refined and improved over the past quarter century, and which had worked until Tuesday 29 October – weren’t sufficient to avoid or mitigate the damages we’ve suffered.”
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