This is not about death, although there have been enough in Paiporta and surrounding towns; it's about cleaning up the mud.

It’s hard to imagine just how much mud has to be painstakingly removed from the streets; mud that was once dust before the rains, and which will return to dust once it dries out.

We’re not only talking about the thick, clay-like mud that lies half a metre thick or more in basements and lies piled up along streets where it has been cleared so that people can get through; we’re also talking about the mud spatters on every item of clothes (because you have changed clothes so many times) and in your hallway where you have trudged through, exhausted.

We’re also talking about mud, in some cases, which has already turned to dust, entered lungs and coated everthing. We moan about calima but multiply that many times to what already besets Paiporta, the residents, the volunteer workers.

And then there’s the lurking infections caused by unseen, sharp objects just below the mud; the sewage that has entered the basements. It’s all there, yet when we imagine what has happened, we sometimes only conjured images a water smashing through streets, tossing cars and people caught in its way.

It’s the aftermath; the long and protracted aftermath that lingers even as news outlets lose interests because their online news is already losing hits.

I speak with Mari Angustias every day that I can, but she has limited battery on her mobile because the electricity supply keeps coming and going, and she is exhausted (you can see it in her face, but she still manages a smile). It’s the mud and dust, she says; it’s everywhere. Now at least they have water in the taps, and they can flush the toilet, but there is no hot water because the natural-gas supply has been cut since the day of the flood… over a week ago. When there is electricity, they can use the microwave to cook or heat something, even make a hot drink, but when there’s not…

Volunteers do bring food, medicine and hygiene products and there’s also a kitchen where you can get hot food thanks to the generosity of Spaniards from all over Spain.

And now with the cold weather arriving on Wednesday, there is no way to heat the flat, so its blankets to keep warm.

(Editorial: Paiporta, Valencia)

Keywords, Mud, Dust, Infections, Electricity, Natural Gas, Heating, Hot Food, Hygiene

Reader comments: “So what are the government doing…or planning to do to help?” – Kathy Hill

Editor: which government? The Central Government or the regional government? Apart from the UME (special military unit for emergency response) there are regular soldiers as well as a Spanish Navy’s amphibious landing ship with supplies, heavy equipment, etc.

The regional government fell down in getting the warning out and the regional PM arrived hours late for an emergency meeting because he was having dinner with a reporter, offering her the post of the regional TV station.

His administration also scrapped an emergency-response unit that had been set up by the previous administration. Hopefully he is a political cadaver.

The Central Goverment? They sent in the UME but regional government at first rejected it. Madrid also turned down EU help, when PM Sánchez should have accepted it and took too long to send in regular army units.

The trouble is that Spain is like the USA; i.e., almost a federal set up. States, don’t like the Federal Government ursurping their authority so if the Federal Government does takes matter into its own hands without the state authorities requesting it, then politicians get their feathers in a ruffle.

Reader’s Reply: “What a sad way to respond to such disasters.” – Kathy Hill