“I am not able to cry but I am afraid all the time, I wake up screaming in the middle of the night” | Spain | EUROtoday

At first look every little thing is okay. María José opens the door of her home and invitations you to sit down in a gleaming kitchen by which there is no such thing as a hint of the mud. Of the “damn mud.” The gentle enters the courtyard of the patio. Everything is impeccable and in place. When he speaks, look within the eye and smiles. It is a uncommon smile, just a little melancholic, just a little laborious, a bit pressured. She is a 47 -year -old stunning girl, with blond curls that fall by her shoulders. He says that earlier than he was fastened so much for every little thing, however not anymore, that he doesn’t really feel prefer it. Really, she does not really feel like something. Because, though at first look every little thing is okay, nothing is okay.

María José Almazán has not returned to work since October 29, 2024, the evening of the Dana, the evening by which life was rotated in a chilly fragrance. When it was locked inside the shop whereas the water climbed and climbed with the blind of the road. When he referred to as determined time and again at 112 with out anybody listening to him. When he got here out for a showcase that due to God burst by the pressure of the present. When he grabbed a tree in order that the flood didn’t drag it. When he was hugging a windshield, figuring out that his life trusted managing to carry herself. When some neighbors rescued by elevating it with the cable of an extender who rolled by the waist. When the morning spent listening to screams whereas watching shadows floating within the water that didn’t know in the event that they have been branches or lifeless …

“You see me now and you may think that I look good, that I look like a hard person … but after what happened I cannot continue with my life normally,” he explains. “I can’t. I survived, but I stayed there. Without anything.

The last six months have been difficult for everyone in the areas affected by the floods. The Dana left tens of thousands of harmed of all kinds: 228 people died and houses, businesses, companies, cars … and although walking today through these villages shows a reality that has nothing to do with the apocalypse of the mud of the days that happened to the cold drop, there are many people with invisible but very deep injuries.

This report is the story of three of them, only an example of all those who, six months later, are still trapped in the Dana. Amparo Chisvert-Tarazona cannot return to his home of Paiporta, the same in which he was hanging from a door for six hours with his 91-year-old mother trying not The waiting for money that does not arrive and without which he cannot start living again.

Let’s go back a moment with María José. “After the Dana I did not notice something,” he reflects on his dining room. “I was going. The ground floor of my house, where we have the living room and the kitchen, was totally shattered, so I spent a lot of time with my children and my husband and the help of friends and volunteers fixing and recovering everything. We live days without light, without water, eating thanks to the queues of hung To vomit without more.

The day after the flood began to run the bulus for a cold that “the women of the druni” had died. She was one of them, the store in charge, and that afternoon she was working with three more companions. Each one suffered its own dramatic adventures after the four swimming for the burst. One stayed to a tree and everything that dragged the flood was hitting it for hours. The other two climbed together to another car and ended up rescuing them with sheets from a balcony. But the bully of his death ran like gunpowder causing additional damage. “I met on the road with many individuals who have been shocked to see me alive,” he says. “And typically it nonetheless occurs to me, six months later. I do know that they’re very pleased that it’s nicely, however it’s exhausting to present explanations time and again. In these villages we proceed with out speaking about something aside from the Dana, and so it’s much more tough to show the web page.”

María José revives what happened that night many times without wanting it, because she comes to mind even if she doesn’t want to. Others do it by therapeutic prescription. During these months he has attended numerous individual psychological consultations and the group therapy offered by the City Council of Catarroja, which is very useful because he can share his sensations and fears with people who have gone through similar situations. He also sessions with a psychologist specialized in trauma who are based on returning to those memories, returning to October 29. “I hope it’s helpful, as a result of I get out of there, exhausted,” he explains. “The solely factor I’m positive is that it isn’t my fault to be like this. Everyone processes all this as you may.”

Amparo’s house is in Paiporta, in a small pedestrian street of low buildings in which the day of the Dana suddenly and in a matter of minutes saw gigantic waves appear. The house is still empty. It impresses that six months have elapsed since the tragedy, because it seems that time has not passed. She is 66 years old and lived with her mother, 91. She is the family home of a lifetime. On their ground floor for decades they ran the flowerist of the neighborhood until Amparo’s sister, which was the soul of the store, died of cancer. And there they would probably have dowed Amparo and his mother on the day of the Dana if the roofs were not so high, which allowed them to breathe grabbed at a door while all the furniture of the house floated around them.

The two survived, but their mother left there with pneumonia after having spent hours in that angry water. He never finished recovering, went out and died two months after a heart attack. There are many cases like that, they do not appear as victims of the Dana because they did not die that morning. “My mom was an older girl, however I feel her dying accelerated by the flood,” says Amparo’s sister, who considers her a hero for having saved her. “Well, at the very least let’s imagine goodbye to her,” he says with his eyes fogged. “Forgive, I’m very crying. But it takes us many hours to know if my sister and my mom have been alive or lifeless. In these streets of Paiporta every little thing was very laborious. He thinks that 4 folks died on this small road, eight folks have been drowned, eight if we rely different homes which might be right here to the facet.”

An rigger tour the rooms while taking notes without stopping. He is also noted in tension. “We do not provide,” he says. “We have provides issues for all the homes and industrial premises that have to be fastened within the space and a variety of stress as a result of it has been half a yr and we all know how vital it’s for folks to return to their properties and their companies. But we arrive at what we arrive.”

The dimension of the area affected by the DANA is of such size that the terms of the reconstruction are dilated for both individuals and municipal facilities. Amparo now lives with his sister in Mislata. Hope to resume his life in Paiporta at some point, but he has no hope that he will happen until at least the end of the year.

Montañana clothing also has been closed since October 29. As if time had frozen after the mud. Where before they were deployed falleras of colors, dressings, combs or tablets now there is nothing. Only bricks, bags, dressed mannequins, shelves, a work ladder and a lot of dust. The store is on Rambleta de Catarroja Avenue, a street that six months after the Dana is far from reaching normality. There are countless bars and stores still closed to lime and song, empty and with a very present mud. In some areas it still smells like mud and fecal waters.

The Fallera clothing store was managed by Elena’s son and she, 52, worked as a seamstress. The whole family lived from that family business, but for six months they only have the 480 euros of insertion income that her husband receives. “We misplaced 64,000 euros in materials and the place was devastated and with extreme structural harm,” explains Elena. “In these bass vehicles, vans … of every little thing. The degree of destruction was brutal, however the skilled of the insurance coverage consortium made an analysis by video name and provided us solely 35,000 euros for every little thing. With that we couldn’t reopen in any means, so we resort and now we have not recognized something once more.”

Elena also has to replace the doors of her store. And the parquet, the electrical wiring, the roof, the furniture, the sewing machine, the ironer, the embroidery … “With the help now we have acquired now we have fastened some issues, however it isn’t sufficient,” he says in the midst of the local spillway. “Money is critical to resurface psychologically, to begin residing once more. What has been lived right here may be very laborious. We have misplaced three pals and have seen spooky conditions. We have to have emotional peace of thoughts directly.”

Elena’s store is just 700 meters from the Druni perfumery where María José worked, who is still closed, and very close to her house, where everything seems calm, where at first glance everything is fine … but nothing is fine.

“Sometimes folks from exterior inform me: ‘Well, what? There you’re all nicely and every little thing forgotten, proper?” She is surprised. “It offers me the sensation that it was Valencia, and even exterior our villages, what has occurred right here has not been understood. We have lived a really deep collective trauma and we are going to take lengthy to be nicely. Yes, six months have handed, however no, there’s nothing forgotten.”