Schools closed across Valencia in eastern Spain on Monday after heavy rains prompted fears of a repeat of fatal floods that devastated the Mediterranean region last year.<\/p>\n
Overnight downpours caused localised flooding and a ravine to overflow in Aldaia, one of the towns hardest hit by the October 2024 disaster that killed more than 230 people. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n
“There is a bit of panic because of what happened. People are very scared,” 64-year-old pensioner Jose Luis Ruiz told AFP in Aldaia.<\/p>\n
“Everyone moved their cars away from the area. We set up barriers outside our doors. We had a bit of a sleepless night.”<\/p>\n
More than half a million students in Valencia had no lessons on Monday because 243 local councils in the region closed their schools as a precaution, regional education authorities said.<\/p>\n
The regional capital, Valencia, also closed all public spaces, including libraries, parks, markets and cemeteries, local officials said.<\/p>\n
National weather agency AEMET kept coastal areas of Valencia province under the highest red alert on Monday because of the risk of torrential rain.<\/p>\n
It said as much as 180 millimetres of precipitation could fall in these areas in the space of 12 hours, possibly in just a few hours.<\/p>\n
The weather agency downgraded its alert level to orange in other parts of Valencia as well as for the southern coast of the neighbouring region of Catalonia.<\/p>\n
Last year’s flood disaster sparked public anger over warning systems and emergency response, fuelling tensions between Spain’s left-leaning central government and conservative regional authorities.<\/p>\n
Residents continue to protest, accusing officials of failing to provide timely alerts.<\/p>\n
Because a warmer atmosphere holds more water, climate change increases the risk and intensity of intense rainfall, and hence flooding.<\/p>\n
vid-rs\/ds\/imm\/gil<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Schools closed across Valencia in eastern Spain on Monday after heavy rains prompted fears of a repeat of fatal floods that devastated the Mediterranean region last year. Overnight downpours caused localised flooding and a ravine to overflow in Aldaia, one of the towns hardest hit by the October 2024 disaster that killed more than 230 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[1954,523,359],"class_list":["post-11778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-rains","tag-spain","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}