Angry flood survivors hurl mud and insults at Spain’s King Felipe VI
Government officials accompanied the monarch on his visit to Paiporta, a town on the outskirts of Valencia that has been devastated by floods.
Spain’s King Felipe VI and top government officials were pelted with mud by a crowd of angry survivors of the recent flooding during the first visit by the country’s leaders to the centre of the suffering.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was evacuated from the scene, according to Spanish broadcaster RTVE, when the official contingent started to walk the mud-covered streets of Paiporta.
The town on the outskirts of Valencia was one of the hardest-hit areas where more than 60 people died and thousands of lives were shattered.
Police had 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.
“Get out! Get out!” and “Killers!” the crowd shouted among other insults.
Queen Letizia and regional Valencia president Carlo Mazon were also in the contingent.
Bodyguards opened umbrellas to protect the royal visitors and officials as protesters hurled mud at them.
After being forced to seek protection, the king remained calm and made several efforts to speak to individual residents.
One person appeared to have wept on his shoulder, and he shook a man’s hand.
The queen, with small dollops of mud on her hands and arms, also spoke to some women.
“We don’t have any water,” one told her.
But the public rage over for the haphazard management of the crisis came to a boil on Sunday.
It was an unprecedented incident for a royal house that takes great care to craft an image of a monarch who is liked by the nation.
More than 200 people have died following Tuesday’s floods and thousands have had their homes destroyed by the wall of water and mud. At least 60 of the dead were in Paiporta.
Indignation at the management of Spain’s worst natural disaster in living memory started after the initial shock wore off.
The floods had already started filling Paiporta with crushing waves when regional officials issued an alert to mobile phones that sounded two hours too late.
And more anger has been fuelled by the inability of officials to respond quickly in the aftermath.
Most of the clean-up of the layers and layers of mud and debris that has invaded countless homes has been carried out by residents and thousands of volunteers.
“We have lost everything!” someone shouted.
Felipe insisted on trying to speak with people as he continued his visit.
He spoke to several people, patting two young men on their backs and sharing a quick embrace, with mud stains on his black raincoat.
According to a journalist for Spanish broadcaster RTVE, one woman wept and told the king she did not have food and nappies, while another person said: “Don’t abandon us.”
But after approximately half an hour of tension, the monarch and the rest of the deletation got into official cars and left with a mounted police escort.
One woman smacked an official car with an umbrella, and another kicked it, before it sped off.
RTVE reported that the barrage aimed at the royals included a few rocks and other hard objects were tossed and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries, and the monarchs and officials called off another stop on Sunday at a second hard-hit village, Chiva, about half an hour to the east of Valencia city.
Mr Sanchez said recovery efforts will not be derailed by the incident.
“I want to express all my government’s solidarity and its acknowledgement of the anguish, suffering, uncertainty and the needs of the residents of Paiporta and the region of Valencia,” Mr Sanchez said, while adding that he believes the majority of people “reject the types of violence that unfortunately we saw today”.
The king later told regional authorities at the command post of emergency response efforts that they had to give “hope to those affected by the flood and attend to their needs, guaranteeing that the state is there for them”.
The mud-slinging scene occurred as thousands more Spanish soldiers, national police officers, and Civil Guard gendarmes arrived, or are set to arrive, at the disaster sites.
