‘Tell the world we have nothing’: Spain’s flood survivors rage at government as calls for protests grow
Survivors of the devastating Spanish floods have told Sky News they feel lucky to be alive.
But they are angry that they have not been given more support by the government, emergency services or the military.
They say they feel forgotten and have been left without power, food or water, despite living within a short drive of one of the biggest cities in Spain.
Wrecked cars in Alfafar, Spain, after the floods
Instead, we have seen thousands of volunteers helping to clear up some of the towns that were devastated, while others have been left to rely on their own residents to deal with the extraordinary devastation.
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“Tell the world that we have nothing,” says one man as we talk in the town of Albal. There are growing calls for a nationwide protest against what is seen as the slow response of authorities.
But there are also mesmerising stories of survival. In Catarroja, we meet Arkait Iniguez, who returned from his high school in Valencia because of a warning of bad weather.
“At first I was in the water up to my knee,” he says. He wanted to check on his grandmother, who lived nearby, but by the time he had reached her house, the water was rushing so fast that it swept him away.
“The stream was so fast and the level rose. I grabbed the post of a traffic sign so I wouldn’t get taken away. Some neighbours tried to help me – they threw me a rope, but it broke.
“I was there for 20 minutes. Something hit me – I think it was a car, but I can’t be sure. And then the stream got less strong and I could jump on to a car.”
Arkait Iniguez got caught up in the floodwaters
Mr Iniguez was there for hours until he could wade through the water to get to safety.
It is a terrifying story, and the deep cuts on his back are testimony to what happened.
Volunteers have been helping with the clean-up operation in Catarroja
He said: “I thought I might die but I also thought to myself ‘this is not how it should end’.”
As we talk, the road is being washed down by the residents, who have worked relentlessly since the morning. “It is the best road in the town,” says one man. Civic pride, it seems, can survive anything.
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Volunteers in Aldaia
Across this region, we saw thousands upon thousands of people volunteering to help get these towns back towards some kind of functionality. We saw huge, snaking lines of people, holding brooms and brushes, an army of helpers.
What we didn’t see was much sign of the actual army.
Walking through the town of Aldaia, which was swamped with mud and debris, there was frenetic and determined work going on. But all of it from volunteers – many of them young people in their late teens or early 20s.
Nor did we see much of the emergency services.
No doubt they are stretched – and nobody can be fully prepared for a disaster on this level, but the fact is that, when you travel round these beleaguered, battered towns, the impression you get is that all the work is being done by amateurs, while the professionals are largely absent.
Father Francisco compared the floods to a ‘horror movie’
Rebuilding will be a colossal job. The physical scars of these floods will last for many years, and so will the emotional ones.
We first see Father Francisco when he is comforting people in the street. His shirt is splattered with mud.
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No, he says, this disaster has not shaken his faith, but it has shaken his emotions. He is close to tears as we talk – exhausted, like his parishioners.
“I would say the main word is shock. We are in shock and you can see the reality has surpassed fiction. This is a horror film, but even more than that.
“This natural catastrophe is worse than a horror movie.”
Slovakia’s prime minister has drawn criticism from across Europe and from his own people after his surprise visit to Moscow for face-to-face talks with Vladimir Putin on Sunday.
Robert Fico is only the third EU leader to visit Mr Putin in Moscow since the Russian president ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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The Kremlin said the two leaders discussed “the international situation” and Russian natural gas deliveries.
Russian natural gas still flows through Ukraine and to some other European countries, including Slovakia, under a five-year agreement signed before the war that is due to expire at the end of the year.
Vladimir Putin, right, and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico shake hands during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow. Pic: AP
Volodymyr Zelenskyy told EU leaders last week that Ukraine had no intention of renewing the deal, which Mr Fico insisted would hurt Slovakia and its interests.
He said his visit to Moscow was a reaction to Mr Zelenskyy’s statement and that Mr Putin had told him that Russia was still ready to deliver gas to the West.
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‘It smells like treason’
In Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, people took to the streets to protest after the meeting, with banners in support of Ukraine as well as unflattering depictions of Mr Fico on display.
One sign simply read: “It smells like treason.”
A protester holds a sign which translates as ‘it smells like treason’ during an anti-government demo in Slovakia, after the country’s Prime Minister Robert Fico met Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Pic: Reuters
Demonstrators at the protest. Pic: Reuters
Mr Zelenskyy said the “unwillingness” shown by Mr Fico to replace Russian gas is a “big security issue” for Europe, and questioned the potential financial incentives being offered to the Slovak leader.
“Why is this leader so dependent on Moscow? What is being paid to him, and what does he pay with?,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
In his nightly address on Monday, Mr Zelenskyy said that Mr Fico had received an offer of compensation for losses from the expiring transit deal, but that he “did not want compensation for the Slovaks”.
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In a statement, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said the “weakness, dependence and short-sightedness” of Mr Fico’s energy policy is a “threat to the whole of Europe”.
The Slovak leader’s “persistent attempts” to maintain energy dependence on Moscow is “surprising” and represents a “shameful policy of appeasement”, the Ukrainian ministry added.
The Czech government also criticised Mr Fico’s trip to Moscow, pointing to its own decision to wean itself off Russian energy.
“It was the Czech government that secured independence from Russian energy supplies so that we wouldn’t have to crawl in front of a mass murderer,” Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky said.
In early December 1955, the phone rang at an air base in Colorado Springs. The officers on the watch floor of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) – who were defending the skies above the US and Canada – stiffened.
The Cold War was in full swing and tensions were running high.
The command’s director of operations Colonel Harry Shoup answered the call. On the other end was a child’s voice asking: “Is this Santa Claus?”
According to the colonel’s daughter Terri Van Keuren, now 75, her father initially thought it was a prank, and replied: “I’m the commander of the Combat Alert Center. Who’s this?”
In response, the child started crying and asked if he was one of “Santa’s helpers”.
Colonel Harry Shoup. Pic: David Bedard
Terri van Keuren was six years old when her father began the Santa Tracker tradition
The colonel then decided to play along, replying that he was indeed Santa Claus and mustering a convincing “ho-ho-ho”.
This surprise call started the nearly 70-year tradition of the Santa Tracker, which allows children around the world to track the whereabouts of Father Christmas via a livestream and a phone line answered by volunteers.
It is now run by CONAD’s successor, the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).
The NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center on Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, on Christmas Eve 2022. Pic: Department of Defense/Chuck Marsh
But how did a child seemingly get the phone number of a colonel in the US air force?
The American department store Sears had printed an advert in a local newspaper telling children they could call Santa, Terri explains.
“They had printed one digit wrong in the phone number. And it was dad’s top secret number.”
Children can use a livestream to track Father Christmas as he delivers his presents. Pic: NORAD DVIDS
Colonel Shoup called the phone company and asked for a new number for his office.
Meanwhile, the phone at CONAD was “ringing off the hook” and Colonel Shoup told his staff they were to answer the calls as Santa Claus.
In the story told by Terri, on 24 December that year her parents arrived at the base to deliver cookies to those on duty, and found the military establishment unusually festive.
A picture of a sleigh had been drawn by a map writer on plexiglass – which was used to mark where unidentified flying objects were located.
“Next thing they knew, dad was calling the radio station. ‘This is Colonel Shoup, the commander of the Combat Alert Center in Colorado Springs. And we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh’,” says Terri.
Terri, who lives in Castle Rock, Colorado, was six years old when her father became the “Santa Colonel”. She says the NORAD Santa Tracker, which reaches millions of children around the world every year, is his “legacy”.
NORAD’s tracking of Santa is a military operation in itself beginning on 1 December.
Brigadier General Jocelyn Schermerhorn, a senior US military officer in Canada, tells Sky News how the day unfolds on Christmas Eve.
“We have about a thousand people come together to set up the operations centre that is used to track Santa and that allows anyone to call in to check on his whereabouts”.
Pic: Charles Marsh
Volunteers are responsible for answering calls from tens of thousands of children around the world. In 2022, 78,000 calls were answered at Peterson Space Force Base.
For 10 years Terri was one of these volunteers. “I always wore a t-shirt that had a picture of my dad. It says: ‘My dad’s the Santa Colonel’.”
What’s next for the Santa Tracker? Terri says her father’s festive story is so famous she’s “had several requests to make a movie out of it”.
Head to Sky News’ YouTube and other social media channels to watch NORAD’s Santa Tracker and find out where he is in the world delivering presents.
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