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This Monday, October 10, Lorca was one of the towns in the Murcia Region that received most calls to emergency services for incidents related to flooding and the heavy rainfall, with 14 calls in total being made for requests for help from distressed citizens.

 

Lorca’s Councillor for Emergencies, Isabel Casalduero, has reported on the incidents that have occurred in the municipality as a result of the rains. She explained: “The 112 centre of the Municipal Emergency and Civil Protection Service has recorded various incidents due to the afternoon rains, including the effects of the flood of water from the Rambla Salada, localised rainfall on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Tercia which has caused overflows of this stream in the area of Serrata and the Rio deputation, especially in the service roads of the A-7 motorway.”

 

The Councillor specified that “two rescue calls have been received for vehicles with occupants [trapped inside].”

 

The first one was at 9.35pm, in which the four occupants of the vehicle – two adults and two children – were trapped in the Rambla del Río Guadalentín as it passes through the Camino Hondo. One of them was even forced to climb onto the roof of the car until the Emergency Services arrived as the water was more than a metre high.

 

Thankfully, the rescue operation to save the frightened family ended successfully and all were found to be in good physical condition and were taken home.

 

The second rescue took place shortly afterwards, in this case a woman who had to be rescued in the same vicinity as she had been trapped between the two crossings of the River Guadalentín.

 

Isabel Casalduero also said that the City Council of Lorca had received “two warnings for the rescue of vehicles in the Rio deputation and the Serrata road, where several points of the roads have been closed to traffic as a preventive measure due to the outflow of water and there have been accumulations of water on the old Águilas road.”

 

The Councillor emphasised that “the Inunlor Plan was activated at 4.30pm in view of the rain forecast, and six professionals from the Emergency Service were mobilised, five Civil Protection volunteers who managed 11 incidents and thanks to the rapid intervention of the Emergency Service, Local Police and Fire Brigade, the safety of our neighbours has been guaranteed.

 

“The episode of storms… left an average of 3.4 litres per square meter, with 5.8 being the average rainfall in the town of Lorca in the last eight hours and in the districts of Ramonete and Doña Inés of 8.6 and 6.6 litres per square meter respectively, followed by La Escarihuela and Valdeinfierno Reservoir with 2.2 and in Zarzadilla de Totana 0.8 litres per square meter.”

 

 

Image: Ayuntamiento de Lorca