#cold drop

Instead of listing them one by one, I'm putting together existing lists for you to pick.

Valencia relief gofundmes.

Letur (Albacete) relief gofundmes. This town has also been quite harsly hit and it's not getting as much coverage.

#ArtistsForValencia masterpost. With a minimum of 5€ donations to any organization, you can contact the artists on this list to get a sketch of something.

The spanish branch of the Red Cross has set up several donation bank accounts as well

This twitter account has been managing to get trucks full of clean water and food to Valencia. Don't start with their profile picture, I genuinely don't care as long as they're bringing help.

Twitter thread with donation links. There's footage on the top of the thread of some people getting carried away by the water, so be warned. The link contains the first of many donation links.

Hambre cero is focused on bringing food and water to disaster zones.

people have died in valencia. people are dying in valencia. people have lost their homes, their families, their source of income. people are killing themselves because they have lost *everything*.

please have some compassion. spain is not just a vacation resort, nor a retirement home, nor a nightclub. is a country, with it's culture, and with it's people. and it's people are suffering.

please, donate what you can. and if you can't, please, please, at least spread the word.

All the local organizations are thankful but for some days have been asking for people to stop sending them objects (tools, clothes, food, etc) because the collection points have so many that they can't manage them and they don't even need so many of some things being sent, for this reason there are storehouses full of materials that they don't need but people keep sending and some volunteers are having to stay there to coordinate the stuff that arrives instead of being where they're needed. So, please, don't send any more things unless you are coordinated directly with a local association there that asked for a specific thing. They say that the most useful donations now are money and not any more food nor second-hand objects. (Again, thank you very much because this overwhelming response speaks of the goodness and solidarity of everyone who immediately reacted by sending things! but let's do it in a coordinated way with the affected people to make sure it's useful).

Also, recently some well-meaning people have been sharing fundraisers to help the victims, but some of these posts seem to be made by outsiders compiling what they found on Twitter, which ended up spreading fundraisers that belong to far right-wing groups, the Catholic Church, and to associations that aren't well known in the area.

If you can make an economical donation to help these people who have lost everything in a day, these are some trustworthy associations:

Fundraiser by Fundació Horta Sud. This is a foundation created by many local associations of the Horta Sud area, one of the areas that has been the most impacted by the catastrophe. It's a well-known foundation that brings together many local associations. This and the next one are the fundraising that is most recommended by people on the ground working on immediate needs.

Casals i Ateneus dels Països Catalans (federation of social centres of the Catalan Countries) has many social centres in the affected areas and is coordinated with trade unions to provide immediate needs. The bank number for donations is ES74 3025 0002 4614 3344 7057.

Fundraiser to help small family-owned farmers (farmers are one of the poorest segments of population in our country, families own a small plot of land and they're very threatened by big corporations, they're at the forefront of fighting for climate and the rural communities' traditional way of living with nature). The fundraiser is created by the International Centre of Rural and Agriculture Studies (Centro de Estudios Rurales y de Agricultura Internacional). This is the fundraiser shared by trustworthy Valencian associations that work in favour of rural communities and traditional cuisine, such as Tasta'l d'ací.

Fundraiser for the grass-roots cultural associations and cultural heritage guardians, organized by the Federation of Local Studies Institutes of the Valencian Country, the Coordinator of Local Studies Centres of the Catalan-Speaking Countries, the Federation of "Ateneus" of Catalonia, and the Ramon Muntaner Institute. Many local archives, centres of local studies, "ateneus" (social and cultural centres with an important task as a library for the community and as historians of the area, among other cultural activities) and other cultural associations headquarters have been destroyed. They are very important for the memory, history and culture of small areas. To write articles about the history and legends for this blog, I very often use work published by these local study groups, because most of the time they are the only ones working in detail on the historical and cultural heritage of their hometown. Here is the information on how to donate, as shared by the organizers:

Translation: Let's help the Valencian cultural and heritage associations affected by the 2024 floods. You can send your donations to [the bank number] ES98 3159 0066 91 3048828523 Or the BIZUM code 10586 (starting on 7th November 2024). You can send the receipt of your donation to: [email protected].

You can find more associations that are collecting donations in this document by Suport Mutu DANA València.

I haven't seen many people talk about what happened in Valencia here on tumblr, and I want to share what's happening because I have friends and friends of friends that were directly affected by the catastrophe.

On October 29, Valencia was affected by a meteorological phenomenon called DANA in Spanish, I think it's called "cut-off low" in English.

It flooded the streets like I’ve never seen happening here in Spain before. The water swept cars, trash bins and trees all over everywhere. Many people have gone missing, some of them are believed to still be under ruins or trapped in tunnels, and there are hundreds of deaths.

The streets of Valencia are dirty with stagnant water polluted by trash and animal corpses, many houses and infrastructures have been affected and people are in need of clean water, food, clothes, electricity and meds.

The weight of solving this situation has fallen onto the citizens. Politicians are doing nothing to help, and are making progress harder in my opinion.

Meteorologists had warned that the situation was going to be dangerous four days before and advised people to not go outside. The government of Valencia is the one that has the responsibility of declaring the alarm and halting laboral activities, but they didn’t do that until it was like six in the afternoon. Many died because businesses and companies threatened their employees so they went to work when there was hell outside.

The government of Spain could have done something when they saw how everything was going down, but they decided to play by the book, wash their hands, and act like they have nothing to do with this situation.

Now, days after the DANA, political parties are using the situation to promote themselves. The government of Spain in general is ruled by a centric-left wing party while the government of Valencia is ruled by a right wing party. The right-wing party is pointing at the central government saying it’s their fault, trying to distract people from the fact that they are the ones that had to do something in the first place. The central government decided that it was a good idea to send the president to the disaster zone dressed in a suit and accompanied by a lot of police officers when everyone is asking for help from the authorities and public services. He left the place with some stains on him, people were understandably angry.

For some reason, outside help is also being denied when it’s clearly needed. Here I want to thank the French for sending help nonetheless.

Hey, if you’re not from here you might not know about it, but this week has been the week of the Cold Drop in Spain, as usual, with a lot of inundations and non-stop raining after 3 / 4 months of drought. 

Except it isn’t. This year, the weight of the inundations has made the Segura River, which flows mainly in the province of Murcia, and that throughout the year needs a trasvase from the bigger Tagus river to be able to provide water to the crop fields, to overflow. Here is a comparison of the river normally and how it is now, in the city of Orihuela, the most affected place and right now inaccessible:

The most affected areas of this year Cold Drop are in the Southeast, namely the provinces of Murcia and Almería, both of them known for having a Semi-Desertic Mediterranean Climate, and being really arid and with little to no rain most of the year. As you can imagine, this has been devastating. For now, 4 people have died, but the number could increase, as there’s no sign of the Cold Drop to stop soon. I might add that in Almería there is Tabernas, the only natural desert in Spain, that is, well, a freaking desert. Here is how its main town, Tabernas, normally looks like vs now:

In Murcia city, things are also bad, with the Segura river just about to overflow. Note that this city has over 400.000 people, so it would be really bad if it overflows. Again, normally vs now:

Overall, it seems pretty bad. Here are more photos of the Cold Drop:

Overflowing of the Clariano River in Ontinyent, Valencia.

Denia, Alicante.

San Pedro del Pinatar, Murcia.

Murcia city.

Segura River overflowing in Orihuela, Alicante.

Ontinyent, Valencia.

Molina de Segura, Murcia.

Ontinyent, Valencia

Gandía, Alicante.

Molina de Segura, Murcia.

Orihuela, Alicante.

Orihuela, Alicante.

Murcia.

Mallorca.

Almería Province.

100% sure that, if what happened in valencia didn't happen, they would have made him go to work despite the danger (because they already did. on the last cold drop. when we were in a red alert area)

GRAZE - Cold Drop