The Mira flood: a night of water and a year of building work

The afternoon

On 29 October 2024 heavy rain fell on Mira throughout the afternoon. First water rushed down the Rambleta, the rambla, or seasonal watercourse, coming from the mountains, and flowed between the houses, carrying away a car or two; the River Ojos de Moya did not yet seem to be the problem. Councillors saw the water reaching the ground floor of the supported housing and, with the Guardia Civil, evacuated the eight older people living there: those with family in the village went to stay with them and the others slept in two rooms in the pilgrims’ hostel. One of the councillors went home and went to bed because the river seemed to be falling. The housing was later completely flooded.

The mayor was in Madrid that afternoon, at a provincial investment forum, and followed events through videos and calls from her team, villagers and the Guardia Civil. She counted three major surges.

The night

In the early hours the river overflowed. One woman remembers the call from her sister, who lived beside the river, when water was already rising up the stairs; she went down and the bridge could not be crossed, and she saw her sister on the balcony, waiting for dawn. A couple living beside the river had spent the afternoon bailing out the garage with buckets; when water came in again from several places, they blocked doors with blankets and cushions, took their papers and went up to the cámara, the upper floor where belongings were stored. They called 112, heard a crash they thought was the doors and waited in darkness, with the telephone battery running out, until the water fell. Another councillor went out to look at the river, crossed over to help his sister and saw the water beginning to cover the bridge.

Hardly anyone slept. They heard the blows of the water and collapsing buildings, and only at dawn could they see what had happened: marks two metres or more up the walls, houses demolished on both banks, the vegetable plots, path and mill area underwater. In the morning fifty or fifty-two people were rescued from rooftops. One woman died.

The mud

The school opened for evacuees, and sandwiches were made there from the first day; on some of the early days, according to what the mayor was told, as many as two thousand were distributed. The librarian, who had heard nothing during the night, began by looking for dry clothes for a rescued woman. The town council then opened the community centre to receive what arrived from surrounding villages, other parts of Spain and France: food, clothing, tools and household appliances. The first clean-up was done with the villagers’ own machinery, and then volunteers, the UME (Military Emergencies Unit), Guardia Civil and Civil Protection arrived. Engineers and architects inspected and marked the houses, and an office opened in the council chamber to process aid applications.

A builders’ merchant lost nearly ninety per cent of its stock and the hundred-metre wall enclosing it. A week later it was selling blocks, sand and gravel again, without doors or a wall, because the village needed them for shoring up and repairs; the offices had to be cleared by hand, and restoration was not finished until almost a year later.

A year later

In October 2025 some houses had been repaired, others were under repair, and there were plots where houses had stood. One man said his second home, beside the river, where the water had reached three metres, was still in the hands of builders, who had first gone to the homes of people with nowhere to live. The couple who took refuge in the cámara had spent months away, with a brother in Víllora and their daughters in Valencia, and had just laid the floor and repaired the stairs. Some villagers had received insurance payments and others said they had not been properly compensated. The health centre had been working since the summer, and people were playing again in the music room beside the river.

The mayor spoke of 382 homes affected, as well as businesses; the report, of more than a hundred. Some people still feel afraid when it rains. Villagers over ninety said they could remember nothing like it.