Date Published: 23/01/2020
ARCHIVED - Residents of Los Alcázares to hold demonstration on Sunday to demand flood protection
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Locals are sealing the doors of their homes shut every time it rains as flooding becomes more frequent
As the residents of Los Alcázares once again don their boots and pick up their shovels as they begin to clean up their homes and the streets of the town, following the third instance of serious flooding in just over four months after Storm Gloria brought heavy rain to Murcia between Sunday and Tuesday, the sense of indignation that so little has been done to prevent such events since the disaster of December 2016 is growing.
It has become a fact of life in Los Alcázares that residents are now well prepared to do whatever they can to protect themselves and their properties every time it rains. As the storm clouds gather sandbags are placed around doorways on ground floors, low-level walls are erected at the entrances to shops and other establishments and suitcases and bags are hurriedly packed in case they are forced out of their homes, with people aware that the streets could turn into rivers of mud as runoff water makes its way towards the Mar Menor from the Campo de Cartagena.
The level of preparedness is admirable, but the residents point out that it has developed only because, in their eyes, no-one else is doing anything at all to stop the flooding becoming ever more frequent and more serious. That they are sealing the doors of their own homes with quick-drying PVC foam every time rain falls, they say, is not an example of their adaptability but an indictment of the lack of action being taken by the regional and national governments to protect the town.
In response, a march and demonstration are being held on Sunday, starting at the municipal sports complex in one of the areas most liable to flooding, with a large crowd expected to join the calls for action to be taken.
The three floods in the last four months have left residents increasingly pessimistic about the future of Los Alcázares unless protection is afforded both for the built-up area and for the Mar Menor, and already it is noticeable that the number of “for sale” and “to let” signs on properties in the municipality has increased significantly. Some locals even fear that in the medium to long term Los Alcázares could be in danger of becoming a ghost town: should the tourism sector suffer over a long period – and fears are already being expressed that the summer season of 2020 has been “lost” – then economic activity in the area would decline sharply and, to put it simply, there would be few obvious reasons for people wanting to live there and few employment opportunities.
Neither is the problem limited to the municipal boundaries, with similar worries growing over the future in Santiago de la Ribera, Los Urrutias and Los Nietos, and the events of this week will only serve to add further fuel to the indignation and anger felt by residents.
For more local information go to the Los Alcázares section of Murcia Today.
Image: Emergency workers speak to Antonio Luengo of the Murcia government and Mario Pérez Cervera, Mayor of Los Alcázares
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