Rob Horgan
MORE than 100 landslides have been recorded in Mijas and Fuengirola.
It comes after 103 litres of rain fell on the area in just two hours over night.
Motorists driving from Mijas to Alhaurin were forced to swerve between debris falling from the cliffs on either side.
British expat David Blinder told the Olive Press that it was the ‘most scared’ he has ever been.
“There was a pretty major landslide every 100 or so metres along that road,” he said. “At least three quarters of the road was blocked and more land slides were falling as I was driving along.
“It was the scariest drive I have ever done.”
Meanwhile, in Fuengirola local authorities have been working on several flooding sites including on the A-7 motorway.
This is what happens when idiots/savages cut down all the forests which can and do hold the soil in place with heavy rains, you can see the same all over the worlds – la genta es muy stupido.
My house was flooded with a river running through it and was not anywhere near where forests had been destroyed!!
There always seems to be one that instead of expressing sympathy or concern at other peoples plight feels the need to say “I told you so” as if that helps
And no mention of the fires which devastated the area a few years ago. Well done, Crawford, displaying yet more tolerance and empathy.
Welcome to Planet Cooking everyone.
Certain people 50yrs ago were warning that if we didn’t change our ways, one the the repercussions would be Extreme Weather. They were ignored, ostracised and laughed out of town.
This isn’t even the start of what’s coming.
THE most pressing issues to have EVER confronted humanity is OVERPOPULATION and FOSSIL USE.
The way we manage our numbers is with Compassion, Education, Common Sense, Intelligence and Consensus.
Then, MAYBE, life has a chance on this Planet. But don’t bet on it if you want my advice. Good luck.
It’s difficult to know what to say but I just wanted to send my sympathies to all those affected by the devastating floods.
Louise,
you miss the point completely. What was the colour of the water running through your house – was it the colour of topsoil. That topsoil was lost somewhere upstream because long ago all the oak forests were cut down and not replanted.
You obviously bought a house near a river, not a good idea, did it not occur to you BEFORE you bought (or rented) to make a simple assessment of what extreme weather could do?
A few years ago in La Vendee in France 45 people died because they had bought new build houses behind ‘sea walls’ where the apex of the roofs were below the level of the sea. Every year in France we see on the TV homes flooded in Bouch de Rhone/Var/Garde/Herault and always the faces of people who never gave a thought to buying houses built at ground level by rivers and on FLOOD PLAINS – wakey, wakey no, there is no one at home.
Dodgey – so many people have become divorced from the REAL WORLD that they hav’nt got a clue what they are doing, sympathy isd’nt going to change that situation is it.
A long time ago now there was a really good programme every week on Southern TV – Out Of Town. Jack Hargreaves used to present the programme from his workshop/den and the subject of flooding came up one week. As he said he could’nt understand how anyone was so stupid to buy a house with any degree of flooding risk. He went on to say that ‘the Celts and Saxons always built above the risk of flooding, somehow common sense seems to have got lost.
If people had any common sense left they would never buy anything with a risk of flooding. Do you really think builders/property developers would build that which they could’nt sell – of course they would’nt. It’s perfectly possible to build on flood plains or by rivers but you build OFF THE GROUND. This way by using a waterproofing additive to concrete you can have very useful additional space for whatever. Or you build a re-inforced concrete wall around your property with a storm proof entrance. The concrete can be faced with stone or crepi to look more attractive – problem solved.
So Dodgy It’s true I have no time for fools. Of course you could have said why don’t people use their brains. You would think that as there are so many repetitions of flooding in so many places that no one would ever buy or rent a house that faced the risk of flooding but they do because they still have not made contact with the real world and probably never will.
Using this logic Stuart, you accuse virtually everyone in The Netherlands of being stupid. They illustrate the possibilities of human ingenuity in the face of Nature’s vagaries. A little sympathy for unfortunate people would be more fitting than nasty gloating.
The Dutch have hundreds of years experience in water engineering, and forbid construction in risky areas. In Spain building in flood zones is forbidden, but often ignored by municipal authorities.
Is Estepona in a flood zone? Is the whole of the Costs Del Sol? Point is, saying “I told you so” doesn’t comfort someone who’s drowning.
There is no ‘I told you so’ here. Soil engineers and hydrologists are well aware of which Spanish coastal areas and waterways are at risk of erosion and flooding, and what to do about it. Town councils and businesses, however, either find scientific evidence and prediction inconvenient to their own programs and agendas, or lack the intelligence and will to be proactive. Or see their position of public trust as a largely ceremonial
In the USA parish councils and state governments along the East and Gulf coasts did not listen to experts who predicted levee breaches and inland tidal flooding before and after Katrina, Sandy and other storms. A prominent Dutch levee expert working in Louisiana, who predicted a washout of the main New Orleans levees based on soil quality and height were ignored by politicians. The ‘reclaiming’ of salt marches, the natural flood plains of the Mississippi Delta, has long been criticized by engineers and environmentalists. But similar to Spain, big corporate interests over-ride engineering knowledge and public safety.
And in California experts on flooding, erosion, wildfires and landslides – all related – have been predicting annual coastal floods, fires and mudslides for decades.
.
In Asturias experts predicted a massive flood from Los Picos to Ribadesella based on data about snow level, temperatures, rainfall frequency and tidal flows up river a week before the disaster occurred in June 2010. Even though open pit stone mining is a major business in the greater area, with dozens of heavy earth moving machines and scores of heavy 4×4 heavy gravel trucks, and hundreds of quarry workers, nothing was done because the alcalde either lacked initiative or saw it as ‘god’s will.’ Not a single sand bag was filled or placed, underground car parks were not emptied, animals were not removed from barns and pastures by the river, a recently built hospital sited on the river’s flood plain was not evacuated till the basement and ground level flooded and then mainly by volunteers with private canoes and boats. The alcalde was forced to resign in disgrace a few days later.
Devastation resulted, some or much of which could have been mitigated had politicians had the will and sense of responsibility to to do something other than dramatically speak after the fact of the awesome power of Mother Nature.
.
There is no comfort for those trusting citizens who expect that ‘officials’ will do the right thing to protect them. Public safety is – or ought to be – the most important part of their official duties. The USA, too, is having trouble enacting laws to prevent people from building in high risk areas, a habit which costs tax payers many millions every year.
If anything positive is to be gained by such disasters it is that local citizens must demand accountable politicians, and that would-be alcaldes and councillors should have knowledge beyond the location of the best eateries, clubs and brown envelope venders.
Chas,
he always comes up with total b/s. I’ve lived in the Netherlands and the Dutch nearly always out smart the English. The way they build shows intelligence and always has. Visiting a friend in a beautiful little fortress of a village in Brabant, in the 16th century they were using a form of double glazing.
In the late 19th century they built multi-occupation houses that totally eclipsed the equivalent in the UK. Basements/kelders, forbidden to live below ground, they were used to store the bicycles that the Dutch latched onto fast. As families were large by that time with more infants surviving to adulthood – room for 6 bikes per flat. Never saw any damp in a Dutch or Gerrman basement – because they used the right materials. A simpl;e method for to let a visitor in by ropes and pulleys. The attics/solderkamers were huge with a set space for each flat, big enough to store a flats complete contents. No fire escapes but an opening from one house to another to escape any fire. Bricks were virtually engineering bricks since it rains a lot in the Netherlands. Roads built on top of dykes. When Charles the 1st brought the Dutch over to drain the Somerset levels they urged him to have them build dykes – he refused, he preferred to spend money on art, art that Cromwell sold to the Spanish,once he cut off his (my ancestor) head, see it all in the Prada.
As always Sally you tell lies and untruths, I am not gloating just pointing out how stupid so many are today. To say that is a stone cold fact and should be used as a warning so that they will not be so stupid in the future but as a man once said – the awakening of intelligence happens the moment you realise you are stupid – for some that is simply impossible.
Sally is asking a question, which if he bothered to find out is – yes, all the low lying land is at risk and this has been covered in the past right here on the OP.
How enlightening to find that Estepona, Fuengirola, Marbella Malaga, Coin (in the hills) were all built on a flood plain. It’s climate change where the problem lies. But to address that, some extremely uncomfortable truths need to be faced. Truths that would affect everyone of us. It’s more convenient to point the finger at gormless politicians, while clinging to our cheap flights, fossil fuels, filthy shipping, personal transport, over-consumption and general planet-rape.
But what is really important right now is, clearing up the mess and getting victims back into dry houses and shops. The much-needed debate comes later.
Proof of a ‘flood plain’ is that it floods – whether upland gorge, canyon or glen, coastal marsh or swale, cliff bank, village street, vega, underground car park, dry gulch, drainage canal, etc.
Of course climate changes are critical to flooding – as are human negligence and reluctance to change traditional energy, consumption, farming and legislative habits, which would enact proactive emergency public safety, building and urbanization changes while long term measures are accomplished.
Chas,
he does’nt want to hear, he does’nt want or can’t change his mentality, he defends the indefensible. He wants to get people back into the same houses that were badly built and in the wrong place – Aunt Sally in a nutshell.
Don’t you get cramp from all that knee-jerking? What else are flood victims to do? Move into a yurt in the hills?
You really need to deal with this obsession Stuart. You’re turning into a stalker.
Yurts exist in Mongolia not Spain
No. In Mongolia they are known as “Gers”. In Europe (and other places) They have been adapted and adopted for camping and “glamping” and are called “yurts”
There are probably people reading this who rent them out.