Valencia, thousands of citizens in the square after the flood: "Out with the governor"

Eleven days after the tsunami of mud and water that overwhelmed 78 municipalities in the province of Valencia and took at least 220 lives , indignation took to the streets of the Spanish capital, where tens of thousands of people protested against the "failed management" of the emergency caused by the Dana and the resulting floods.

The target is Governor Carlos Mazón , of the Popular Party, who has been asked to resign at the height of the indignation already expressed in the protests during last Sunday's visit of King Felipe VI and Letizia, of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, and of Mazón himself to Paiporta, one of the municipalities brought to its knees by the catastrophe.

At the head of Saturday night's procession, called by 68 social organizations and entities and which set off at 6 p.m. from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, was an enormous banner with the words "Mazón dimisión" written on it, over an upside-down image of the Valencian governor, while shouts of "Mazón resign, come out of hiding" and "they have blood on their hands, not mud" resounded.

Before the start of the march, the spokespeople of the associations, Ana Oliver and Beatriz Cardona, denounced "the negligence of the government of the Valencian Community" first for the delays in raising the alarm to the population and then for the chaotic management of the emergency.

"They have shown themselves to be incompetent. They do not deserve to direct the lives of Valencians," the indictment reads. "They did not know how to manage a natural disaster. They did not know how to raise the alarm, they do not know how to organize the cleanup aid and the collection of mud and debris and they will obviously not be capable of organizing the reconstruction that our country needs. Therefore, they must leave immediately," their request.

The march initially took place in silence, in memory of the victims of the flood, then slogans were raised from the procession against Mazon but also against the central government, which "could have done much more".

On the sidelines of the protest, dozens of pairs of shoes covered in mud were brought to the regional government headquarters. Among the protesters were entire families and people of all ages, and many volunteers who have helped in recent days to clean the affected municipalities from the mud and piles of wreckage and debris. Moments of tension were experienced when some groups of protesters set off firecrackers against the town hall. The strong police deployment dispersed a group that had thrown oranges and mudballs against the administration headquarters, shouting "murderers" and "El pueblo muriendo y Mazon comiendo (the people were dying and Mazon was eating)", in reference to the hours-long delay with which the governor, last October 29, had joined the crisis unit at the emergency operations center, when entire municipalities had already been overwhelmed by the floods.

The outrage has flooded not only the centre of Valencia, but also that of Madrid, where thousands of people demonstrated in Puerta del Sol calling for "Mazón dimision", and in other cities such as Alicante, Gandia or Elche.

(Unioneonline/vl)