A group of experts from the University of Valencia, the state Meteorology Agency (Aemet) and the Valencian Association of Meteorology (AVAMET) has analyzed the “precipitation volumes in the basins of the Rambla del Poyo in the genesis of the floods of October 29, 2024” that caused at least 225 dead. The study makes an estimate according to which the flow of the deadly flood could triple or more 2,283 cubic meters per second that were recorded in the capacity (the measurement point) of the Poyo Rambla before breaking at 18.55.
The main conclusion of the study is that the first wave of the flood that shook the area of L’Horta Sud took The Rambla for the measurement of the flow.
This first conclusion reinforces the hypothesis that the first flood could not be detected by the flowmeter of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation because downstream occurred. The only way to alert about that flood would have been with the surveillance of the ravines on-site by firefighters and forest agents of the Generalitat Valenciana. But that surveillance ceased to be carried out from three in the afternoon because the flow in the Poyo ravine had descended until the risk levels were ordered below and the firefighters were ordered to retire, as explained by one of those responsible. “If we had stayed, as we planned, we would have proven at the time the increase in flow when it occurred shortly after. They withdrew us when it did not rained and then what fell fell. The Confederation controls the rivers and many ravines, but with technical means, not on the ground like us,” a forest firefighter with decades of experience.
The Poyo Barranco has “two younger brothers, the ravines of Horteta and Gallego.” “The first one converges with the Poyo in the municipality of Torrent, just before the apical point of the great alluvial fan in which the flood occurred (the highest part where the torrent leaves the mountainous area and begins to expand in the plain).” Experts have analyzed the spatial distribution of the volume of rainfall fallen on October 29 in Valencia and have developed three “quite reliable hypotheses” about what happened.
1. The precipitation contributions from 16.00 to 19.00 in the backwater basin of the capacity during the second flood of the poyo – the first occurred in the morning and then the flow descended -, the catastrophic of the afternoon, are greater than those fallen in the part of the aphorated basin (measure).
2. The precipitation began to fall with very strong volumes in the Horteta and Galician basins at least one hour before doing so in the Poyo headwaters; Only the lower part of the agorad basin, which extends after the confluence of the large and chiva ravines in Cheste, had a behavior similar to that of the unporated part, but their contributions do not reach a third of the total.
3. The pluviometric contributions schedules of the aforated part have two temporary peaks in the afternoon, at 18.00 and at 20.00, the latter that is when the rains in the basins of the large and chiva ravines were already clearly greater than those of the rest of the basin.
“It could have happened,” says the study, “that who hit the Horteta ravine first with the help of the Galician ravine, the smallest brother, and then the water from the lower part of the Poyo basin, the older brother and who is taking the bad reputation of responsibility.”
The study concludes: “Only two solutions fit:
a) or the Horteta, Galician and lower part of Poyo (which broke the capacity with 2,000 cubic meters per second), and then the flood could triple or more this amount.
b) or hit Horteta and then did Galician and Poyo, with a certain rolling of the rising peak. What surely did not happen is that the main responsibility outside the headwaters of Poyo, whose great contributions were later and further away from the apical point of the alluvial fan (the highest part where the torrent leaves the mountainous area and begins to expand in the plain).
Judicial investigation into the natural catastrophe of October 29 in Valencia has already collected numerous reports from different departments of the Autonomous Administration (112, Environment, Interior) and the state (State Agency of Meteorology, Júcar Hydrographic Confederation) that prove the abundant information that emergency responsible had to make decisions and did nothing. The judge has defined this situation as “an inactivity with fatal result.” However, Carlos Mazón’s Valencian government repeats the idea that the tragedy could not be avoided because they lacked the information of the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation about the flow that did not reach them until 18.45. But the catastrophic flood had, according to this study, a different origin that could not be detected because in those two ravines that flowed downstream from the Rambla del Poyo there were no flow meters or the mandatory surveillance of the Generalitat Valenciana.
Related news :