The first time Álvaro Moscoso heard the strange creak was around ten o’clock this past Wednesday: “I thought an ancient wall had fallen.” Startled, he went out to the street in the upper area where he lives with his parents, but there was nothing. Juan Baena, who frames it at that same time, defines it, perhaps, as a “dry and deaf hum, something unknown.” Mari Ángeles Vega speaks, directly, of an “explosion.” They all witnessed how the 581 liters per square meter that fell in just one day turned the floors and walls of their houses in Grazalema (Cádiz) into terrifying springs, after the aquifer under their feet filled up. And this Thursday they all ended up evicted from a town that has been completely emptied, due to fear that the mass of underground water could cause land collapses.
Like Moscoso, Baena and Vega, some 1,500 residents have had to leave Grazalema, those who remained in a town where 1,977 residents are registered. The enormous effort began after three in the afternoon, after the mayor of the town Carlos J. Garcia and the president of the Junta de Andalucía announced to the media that evacuation was the best solution for “prevention.” “When an aquifer fills up, the water has to come out and when it starts to come out, it starts to put pressure on the walls of the aquifer itself and there can be small landslides. In short, these earth movements can be generated that could precipitate or make possible some type of destruction of a street, of a house, that could happen,” explained the head of the Andalusian Executive, Juan Manuel Moreno.
The decision was made after listening to the team of geologists who joined the advanced command post that was created in the town at noon this Wednesday, after the intense rain that plunged the rainiest town in Spain into red alert entered the town into an unknown dimension. “The water began to come out through the floors,” says Carlos Fernández, a resident of Zahara who went to his parents’ house in Grazalema – aged 87 and 83 – in the afternoon, alerted by the situation. His parents’ home, located in the middle part of a hillside town, began to ooze at night, but the first homes in the lower area showed symptoms of clogging in the morning.
“In the town we all know that we are on an aquifer and that underground rivers run through the town, it was something known,” says Baena, engineer and head of a new wool pellet factory that has just begun its journey in the town. What few could even imagine is that this aquifer could fill to such an extent that the water would seek any outlet, from the floor of a bedroom, to a light box, a corner or a socket. Given the horrendous nature of the scene, the neighbors, municipal workers, members of the Civil Protection, the Civil Guard and the Military Emergency Unit began to make scratches and coves on the walls and steps of the houses so that the water would come out into the street. But it hasn’t been enough.
It was not a good sign that Fernández’s parents’ house, higher up, began to spit out water. Nor did the one below Mari Ángeles Vega do it, already in the upper neighborhood. The mayor explained late at night that the phenomenon had spread to the upper part of the town, which led to the belief that the aquifer was still filling up. The strange creaks, even less so. During that night, more than one person believed that that dry sound, halfway between an explosion and a trembling hum, was houses collapsing. Even worse, it could be the sound of the dam that supplies the town, the Fresnillo, which this Thursday morning the UME finally managed to stabilize. After that first time, the earth creaked “at least three more,” Moscoso estimates. Throughout today’s rainy day, but with less intensity, it has also happened again.
What the residents of Grazalema try to call is, probably, a consequence of that aquifer “up to the handles of water”, as Javier Pérez, councilor of the Government team, rightly assessed. But the mayor has prudently preferred not to get wet and has limited himself to explaining that the geologists are going to prepare a report to know the future of the phenomenon and the integrity of the town. “When an aquifer is in karst terrain, the critical zone is not known. It is an aquifer that gradually pierces the terrain,” explained Mayor García. In the midst of uncertainty, the minds of more than one neighbor and the mayor himself, an oral testimony transmitted by the elders that spoke of a strange phenomenon, similar to this one, that occurred in the floods that the town suffered in 1964.
However, the authorities have explained that the eviction has been carried out to prevent personal injury, but with the hope that it does not escalate. Of course, they have not hidden the fact that they have chosen to carry out the eviction this Thursday, during daylight hours, to take advantage of the rain reduction window that is expected until Saturday, when another atmospheric front enters that could complicate things even more.
“Before seven o’clock everything has to be empty. We are very bad and scared. This is incredible,” Moscos, 30, was right to assess, shortly before having to leave his house, along with his parents. Vega, in a caravan of two vehicles in which the six members of his family were traveling, left Grazalema at five in the afternoon: “There is a tremendous caravan. We take what they have told us, some clothes and documentation. We are going to the Fuerte hotel, on the Ronda road and they will organize us there.” The City Council and the Government of Andalusia plan to relocate all residents who have nowhere to go to accommodation in nearby towns, such as Ronda.
“They have offered us houses in Puerto Serrano or Zahara, the neighbors are giving their all,” adds Vega, whose intention is to try to get to his parents’ house in Jerez, although the road closures in the province make it complicated. The uncertainty that no one dares to resolve is when they will be able to return. “We are with our hearts in our fists, praying and putting ourselves in the hands of the Virgin of Carmen,” explains Moscoso, sacristan in the town’s parish, excitedly. Baena, almost incredulous, has faced the drink with more stoicism. “We were relatively calm, but this is unprecedented. Maybe we were naive, thinking that this was not going to happen,” he explained on the other end of the phone, while they knocked on his door. “It’s my turn to vacate,” he managed to excuse himself before hanging up.
Other evictions in Andalusia
The storm has forced the evacuation of other towns in Andalusia. In the community, the number of evacuees now amounts to about 5,000.
The overflowing of rivers and streams in the province of Córdoba this Thursday forced the evacuation of at least 348 people in the areas of Guadalvalle, and also in the vicinity of the Guadajoz River. Several of them have been relocated to a shelter set up in the Vistalegre neighborhood in the capital of Córdoba. This preventive measure has been coordinated by emergency devices, social services and city councils, which do not rule out further evictions and maintain surveillance in the vicinity of the rivers.
In Ronda (Málaga), the Military Emergency Unit (UME) was deployed this afternoon around the city, where they are collaborating to improve the situation on roads and highways that left more than 300 people isolated this Wednesday. Access to the areas of La Indiana, Llano de la Cruz and Fuente de la Higuera remain cut off due to the overflowing of the Guadalevín due to the intense rains, which this Wednesday left more than 100 liters per square meter in various municipalities of the Serranía de Ronda, a figure that exceeded 200 in Alpandeire, according to Aemet statistics.
The town of Arcos de la Frontera, in whose area the reservoir of the same name is located, has already had about 800 residents evicted. Of them, it is hosting about 26 families in municipal facilities. Among those evicted are also the elderly from a residence, Residencial El Lago, which is located next to the swamp. The floodgates of the Arcos reservoir, a regulation reservoir of about 14.3 hectometers, have opened at their highest ever recorded: 700 cubic meters per second, about two hectometers per hour.
In another of the provinces hit by heavy rains, Granada, the Government’s subdelegate, José Antonio Montilla, updated mid-morning this Thursday on the effects of Leonardo. The situation continues to be “very complicated,” he said, although no personal injuries have been reported so far. The accumulation of water during the night and the historic flow reached by numerous rivers have caused significant incidents, especially in the Genil basin – especially in Huétor Tájar, where the UME coordinates all actions, Fuente Vaqueros and Villanueva Mesía; in the foothills of Sierra Nevada –Dúdar–; in the Guadix region, due to the overflowing of the La Lama and Fardes rivers; in the Alpujarra, with Órgiva as the most affected site, and in various parts of the Granada coast. Up to 234 people have been evicted from their homes: 150 in Dúdar, 30 in Órgiva, 10 in Cenes de la Vega, 13 in Villanueva Mesía, 8 in Montillana, 2 in Salar and 12 in Pinos Genil.
The first vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, has assured that when the Leonardo storm passes and the rest of the episodes of precipitation that are expected in the coming days in the community, the Executive will declare “areas seriously affected by a civil protection emergency” the territories most affected by a storm that has already left 4,000 evicted.
With information from Eva Saiz, Javier Martín-Arroyo, Javier Arroyo y Nacho Sanchez.
