The sea of mud and stagnant water submerging Spanish towns more than 10 days after the country’s worst floods in decades has sparked a sickening stench and health fears.
‘That’s the rotten meat,’ said Toni Marco, pointing to a destroyed supermarket in the devastated town of Sedavi from which a disgusting odour wafted when AFP visited.
The meat was only removed recently, well after the floods cut the refrigerators’ electricity supply, added Marco, a 40-year-old employee of a private cleaning company.
The nearby town of Catarroja also remains a mud bath after the October 29 disaster that has claimed 219 lives, with a powerful reek compounding the woes of survivors.
The diversity of matter decomposing under the mud produces a spectrum of smells ranging from the mildly unpleasant to the outright repulsive.
‘Each decomposition of an element smells differently,’ which explains why the odours vary from street to street, said Angel Aldehuela, a 51-year-old firefighter from the southern Seville region.
Dead animals may also lie buried under the mud, he said.
When the mud dries, the organic matter decomposes without oxygen and ‘that’s where those smells we’re not used to start to appear,’ explained Miguel Rodilla, a biologist at Valencia’s Polytechnic University.
‘There aren’t necessarily bodies nearby, but simply organic matter decomposing.’
In scenes reminiscent of the Covid-19 pandemic, rescuers, volunteers and residents have worn face-masks and gloves during the clean-up, while some people have complained of the stink causing headaches and dizziness.
Breathing in the pestilential miasma ‘isn’t ideal for health’, but ‘higher concentrations’ of decomposing matter would be necessary to make it toxic, said Rodilla.
Stagnant water can trigger gastrointestinal disorders or pneumonia, Health Minister Monica Garcia told public radio RNE, but she ruled out the possibility of an ‘outbreak’.
The health board of the Valencia region, particularly crippled by the floods, has also reported no outbreak of infectious diseases or a major threat to public health.
Even so, regional health authorities have asked local councils to apply measures to control and prevent the proliferation of mosquitoes and other insects capable of spreading diseases.
Aldehuela warned that the foetid fumes enveloping Catarroja ‘will get worse, without a doubt’, predicting they would linger for up to a week more.
But in towns where the muck has been cleared swiftly, an aroma of bread or fruit has replaced the stench, the head of the army’s emergencies unit Javier Marcos said on Friday.
Hospitals in Valencia have been preparing for a wave of infections and illnesses linked to the stagnant flood water and stinking mud.
Experts have predicted that mosquito-borne diseases and skin infections will rise as the clean-up continues and are also sounding warnings about gastroenteritis and Hepatitis A linked to the consumption of contaminated drinking water.
The stagnant water has also been described as the ‘perfect habitat’ for the rapid rise in the number of cockroaches and rats.
It comes as Spaniards across the country plan to demonstrate against local, regional and national governments this weekend for their lack of preparedness and slow response to the catastrophic floods.
Protesters will also call for the resignation of the president of the Valencian province Carlos Mazon, who was pelted with mud last week by angry locals during a visit the flood-stricken town of Paiporta.
Mazon was accompanied by Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia, as well as Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez.
Crowds of furious valencians shouted ‘murderers’ and other insults at the royals as well as government officials during the visit, with police having to step in, with some officers on horseback to keep back the crowd of several dozens who hurled mud and waved shovels and poles threateningly in the air.