Thousands of volunteers have supported the Valencian Community today

Some 15.000 volunteers gathered this Saturday around the Ciutat de les Arts in Valencia to depart, in different buses, towards the municipalities most affected by the DANA, a catastrophe that, for the moment, has left 202 fatalities in the autonomous region.

Yesterday, the Generalitat Valenciana launched an official call for all those who wanted to collaborate from the city to come to the Ciutat de les Arts at 7 a.m. to be organized and distributed by areas.

According to Miguel Salvador, president of the Valencian Community Volunteer Platform, the number of registered volunteers is 15.000, of which 9.750 have travelled to the villages.

Some of them left early in the morning in 50 buses to travel to different villages and the avalanche of volunteers has forced the use of more vehicles. Thus, the first ones went to the affected areas and returned to the starting point at 14 p.m., while the following ones left at 14 p.m. and returned around 16 p.m.

At the Ciutat de les Arts in Valencia, volunteers are being given out vests to identify them, as well as some material with food and water.

This part of the city has stopped being full of cameras and selfie sticks this Saturday and has been filled, since 6.30 am, with rubber boots, brooms and buckets belonging to the more than 10.000 volunteers who have gathered at the Science Museum. Their mission has been to travel to municipalities in the province of Valencia because “solidarity is a long-distance race and will have to be seen for a long time.”

This is what one of the volunteers who queued up to collect the identification bib, the mask, the Food Bank box and the materials offered by the Volunteer Platform of the Valencian Community told Europa Press Television, in order to then get on one of the buses, 35 of which were offered by the Valencia City Council, through the EMT, as reported by Mayor María José Catalá in a message through the social network X.

Specifically, at around 7.30 am the first three convoys left, escorted by the Local Police, where various groups of between 50 and 60 volunteers travel, guided by a coordinator, together with distributed medical teams. In the affected areas, Civil Protection is waiting for them with specific orders to act on the street. So far, 9.750 have left; while the more than 5.000 who have not been able to get on, due to the large numbers of people gathered, will be the first to move on this Sunday.

“COORDINATED” VOLUNTEERING

The president of the Valencian Community Volunteer Platform, Miguel Salvador, has pointed out that the response is “bigger” than they expected. “What we are trying to achieve is that all the movement registered in these last two or three days is articulated, managed, directed, coordinated, and ensured in a logical and coherent way so that a person who wants to do a voluntary action, at least knows what they have to do,” he said.

Silvia, a resident of the Mestalla neighbourhood, boarded one of the first buses. She arrived on foot and carried a broom and a bucket. Silvia is an assistant at a gynaecological centre and stressed that “empathy is needed, and a large number of people have to travel”. “We cannot take out medication without a doctor's permit, otherwise I would have brought an entire pharmacy”, she lamented.

He also explained that his son went to Catarroja with a friend to offer his help. “There are elderly people who were alone and had nothing, who had lost everything, because in the neighbourhood where they were there were eight low-rise houses destroyed. They helped an elderly couple, who asked them if they could bring their medication from the pharmacy, since they had lost it in the mud; and his friend returned with it,” he said.

“THE PEOPLE SAVE THE PEOPLE”

Another of the volunteers, Empar, came from Benimaclet. This Friday she travelled to Aldaia with her bike to help and stressed that “the village saves the village because there are no other resources, and if there aren’t, then the others will have to do something.”

Some of the boots that could be seen were stained with mud, a sign that a large part of the neighbourhood had come to help the affected villages in the previous days, and had covered the white ground designed by Santiago Calatrava with the colour of this tragedy.

Some of these boots belong to Javier Marco and David Martínez, who have been helping the residents of Paiporta for two and three days, respectively. Both volunteers have pointed out that “even if the worst adjectives are used, any adjective falls short” to describe the effects of the DANA.

“There is no justification. There is no need to look for any excuse, you have to be here and that's it, there is no more to it,” Martínez stressed, to which Marco added that people need them and they will be there. “It is civil society that has really brought out both the living and the dead,” they lamented.

“IMPRESSIVE DISPLAY OF VOLUNTEERS”

For her part, the Vice President and Councillor for Social Services, Susana Camarero, thanked the volunteers for this “impressive and emotional display, which has been making our hair stand on end since early in the morning, who have wanted to come and give their time at this time when they are so needed.”

Speaking to the media on Saturday after the departure of the convoys, Camarero said that today “90 buses have left, 55 from the Ministry and 35 from the EMT”. “This means that after two hours have passed since the start of this procedure, 5.000 people have left and are spread out in different places where they are needed and since 9.30 am there were 15.000 people”, he said.

“There are many destination points, those where the emergency services have confirmed that they can go. They are distributing them throughout the area around Aldaia, Torrent or Alaquàs. We have also taken buses to Ikea so that Civil Protection could distribute them between Alfafar, Catarroja, Sedaví. Also to Llombai, Catadau, Requena, Alzira, Montserrat, Cheste, Riba-roja and Chiva,” he said.

He stressed that “from now on, people who are not here should not come” because “they will not be able to provide coverage”. He also asked citizens “not to take the car, because the emergency services are still doing their job, and all those cars hinder their work”.

Regarding the continuity of the coordination of volunteers from the Ciutat de les Arts, Camarero has responded that “it is a long process”. “The first part is what the emergency services have to do, removing vehicles, cleaning with heavy vehicles and then we will organize it based on what we need without rushing into making decisions because they are very variable,” he said.

BONAIRE, “MEETING POINT”

After some volunteers expressed their displeasure at the possibility of being assigned to shopping centres such as Bonaire, the councillor insisted that “Bonaire is a meeting point” because “convoys cannot access the municipalities”.

"Bonaire is a central point for buses and from there Civil Protection is diverting them to all the surrounding municipalities," he stressed in response to what he described as possible "misinformation."