By Valentina Jaimes
Mentor: Ilaria Bionda
Translation from Italian by Giorgia Zappa
Photos by Valentina Jaimes
The night of the 29th October 2024, due to the DANA, the barranco del Poyo flooding swept away the area of Valencia, leaving behind 227 deaths and a missing person. A year later, the landscape is still affected by construction sites where there was once the river. The work on the key infrastructures is still on, trying to rebuild what water and mud destroyed, while the city tries to keep together everyday life and memory.
Paiporta
At the exit of metro line 7, in the municipality of Paiporta (South of Valencia), the first glance falls on a hurt ground: piles of rubble, sacks of building materials and broken palm trees where once were fields. Here, in the “cero zone” of DANA (acronym of Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos, meaning “high level isolated depression”), in autumn 2024, the water has swept away streets and homes in few minutes, striking the Valencian Community and causing 56 victims.
In the underpass we find ourselves at the renowned station and street, Carrer Mestre R. N. Galàn. Just a few minutes away, Paiporta seems already “alive again“: people are returning from Valencia, the shops are open, the Sant Jordi bell tower, and the town library, with its glass façade, are full of students and lights. However, in between shop windows and lights the traces of DANA still remain: peeling façades and visible repairs, as if normality is being pieced back together bit by bit.
Coco y Luna
On Carrer Echegaray, the sheet metal door of Coco’s apartment seems like a wall of forced dialogue. Beneath the peeling plaster, the writings are erased and rewritten: «Está en venta» (“It is for sale”), then «No se vende» (“It is not for sale”), and even overlapping accusations and requests for help , as a battle to decide the identity of that home.
Coco rents this place, and tells us about the legal dispute with the owners. He says that the 6.000 euros in aid from the Generalitat, a fixed contribution for those who lost basic necessities in their homes, is not enough to put back together the apartment. He risks eviction if he misses even one month’s rent. In a city where many, after DANA, have sold their place and left, he stays.
Inside Coco’s home, in Paiporta, life resumes in a temporary way. Two white cats run towards him: “My biggest lovers”, he says. Around him, the kitchen is reduced to a few stoves, the floor remains bare and reddish; the doors lean against the walls; and the humidity clings to surfaces worn away by water, which touched the ceiling during the flooding.
Amidst chaos and different items, some “new beginnings”, donated by volunteers who came from other cities, pop out: a refrigerator, a microwave, even a boiler which he hasn’t been able to install yet. The bathroom has only been half renovated, and the water does not work: to wash himself, Coco needs to go to his sister’s. He tells me: “Something important is missing here: money and time… and motivation”.
Flowers, drawings, garlands and comforting messages remain hung on the grids by the barranco del Poyo, as a spontaneous memorial to the victims of the floods. A little further on, on a balcony, a banner in catalan “Gràcies per l’ajuda” (“Thanks for the help”), recalls the solidarity of the volunteers from other cities who came during the days of emergency. From the bridge in front of the Ayuntamiento, which connects the two banks of the canal, the gaze wanders on a riverbed that has now been excavated and “made safe”: neatly arranged stones, manicured embankments and protected trees.
A year later, the memory intertwines with the reconstruction: the municipality has planned commemorative events and official mourning days, while a permanent monument for the victims is planned in the following months.
Los ‘Pepe’ de El Casino
Under a beige tent, in front of the lowered shutters of the Ateneu Musical y Mercantil, called just “El Casino” for the people of Paiporta, a group of elderly people gather together every day on plastic chairs to pass the time watching life go by.
They say: “We are all called Pepe”. Before DANA, this was one of the most important cultural spaces for the country, hosting band rehearsals, concerts, dances, neighbourhood lunches, card games and journals. Today, only remains the façade, while the members recall how the water reached the street lamp and that “todo está hecho polvo”: the place fell apart, and with it, those who lived there. By the entrance, hanging papers remember the Christmas lottery: a small sign of normality next to a stil-open void.
Inside of “El casino”, in Paiporta (l’Ateneu Musical y Mercantil), the construction site is still closed: naked floor, walls stripped down to the stone, electric cables hanging from the ceiling. The members talk about a year of promises and deferrals: “Promising cost nothing”, they say, while waiting for reconstruction help. They say that what they especially lack is the mano de obra, the work force: workers, even before money. And yet, above the ruins, an intact detail remains: a painting with figures singing and playing. A gathering place and music venue; a stubborn memory of what this place used to be like and what it still strives to become again.
In front of a gravel and fenced parking lot, a “for sale” sign is covered up with a red paint writing “Sanch dimion”, a mispronunciation of “Sánchez dimisión” (“Sánchez resign”). In Paiporta, a year after the DANA, the reconstruction is happening alongside political anger: there are those who talk about the “quick” passage of the authorities — “el galgo de Sánchez”, as called by some — and also, the pressure of protests revolves around the management of the emergency by the Generalitat Valenciana. In the meantime, among the younger generation, the image of piles of cars being swept away by floodwater remains. Today, they watch the construction sites and say: “Paiporta looks prettier and more modern as for today”.
José junto al barranco
The Barranco del Poyo opens up like a long wound in the heart of Paiporta: under a blue sky crossed by pink clouds, the reconstruction has an almost poetic, yet unsettling way about it. At 19, the construction site does not stop: a yellow crane, lorries and scaffolding light up the bed of the river and wrap the pillar of the future bridge, while high parapets and embankments are erected to contain the basins.
José, with a shopping bag, stops to watch: he recalls how, on October 29th, 2024, it “didn’t rain” there, yet water, in less than an hour and a half, came to from the barranco up to two meters, dragging cars, objects and destroying even bridges. Today, a year later, the works proceed slowly: the Mayor speaks of approximately 20% completion, while essential services are reopening in the city.
A low house remains “open” to the void: the first floor collapsed towards the canal, and where there were once bridges and walls, now there are barriers, tape and branches which seem to hold up what remains. Around the barranco, between new railings and shops decorated for Christmas, life tries to start again but fear remains: a cloud, the sound of rain is enough to light again the alert.
According to regional health data, the cases of post-traumatic stress in the most affected areas have increased in the last year. And within this landscape, the emptied homes pose a question: who lived there, and where are they now?
Other reports
If you are interested in report, we have previously published one on our website about the experience in Belém during the COP30, and others will be coming soon.