Four of the Malaga municipalities most affected by 'Dana' floods join forces to access funding

13 November 2024 will be a date that the 3,000 inhabitants of the Axarquía municipalities of Benamargosa, with some 1,600 inhabitants, and Comares, with 1,400, will find difficult to forget. Monday 13 January marked two months since a heavy storm led to the Benamargosa river bursting its banks and devastating dozens of farms, houses and several streets in the village of the same name. The damage was also extensive in Salto del Negro, a hamlet belonging to Cútar, and in other villages in the Vélez-Málaga area including Triana, La Zubia and El Trapiche.

Now, two months on, the four municipalities are still assessing the damage to buildings, although they are gradually returning to normal. In order to try to coordinate actions and care for those affected, especially with regard to the extensive damage to farms, the mayors of the four municipalities, Jesús Lupiáñez from Vélez-Málaga, and the mayors of Benamargosa, Salvador Arcas, Comares, José Miguel Ruiz, and Cútar, Francisco Javier Ruiz held a working meeting at Vélez-Málaga town hall last week.

Lupiáñez said via social media that it was "a very productive meeting" where the four mayors "shared impressions, assessed the damage and defined a joint roadmap to coordinate the necessary aid to restore normality as soon as possible".

One of the objectives is to channel requests for aid to repair rural roads and damage to farms, "so that we are the connection with the various public administrations: Diputación de Málaga, Junta de Andalucía, the government of Spain and also with the European Union" said Lupiáñez, speaking on Cadena Ser Axarquía radio.

Benamargosa has estimated the damage to the village's public infrastructure at more than two million euros. Furthermore, around fifty homes and businesses and twenty vehicles were affected and subtropical and citrus fruit farms bore the brunt of the storm. For now Benamargosa has only received 25,000 euros in aid from the Junta de Andalucía.

The mayor of Benamargosa told the radio station that "There are many things to be solved with the farmers and the idea is to unite the four municipalities to put more pressure on them and to make them listen to us more."

The mayors are due to meet with local farmers who have already expressed to SUR their "concern and fear" about getting permits to repair the damage done to their farms by the storm. More than three thousand citrus and subtropical growers in Vélez-Málaga, Benamargosa, Comares and Cútar, with a thousand hectares affected, are asking the Junta for authorisation and help to repair the damage.

Speaking to SUR in December, the Junta de Andalucía's spokesperson for agriculture, Fernando Fernández, sent a message of "calm and encouragement" to the farmers affected by the storms, denying that they had been threatened with sanctions or that they had been given the message that they would not be able to recover their farms. "After the emergency caused by the historic rains, we are working on a second phase of recovery," he said.

Fernández explained that they are processing a "million-dollar investment" to act in the areas most damaged by the two storms that hit the province in autumn, in the Guadalhorce valley, Serranía de Ronda and the Axarquía, with the aim that "as soon as possible" farmers can go back to cultivating the damaged farms and that no new serious flooding will occur in the event of further heavy rain.

"We are going to study each case on a case-by-case basis, I ask them to be calm, to process the corresponding permits and to act, to recover the farms, to carry out controlled burnings of plant remains and to restore the slopes, wherever possible, as long as there have been no irregular occupations of the public water domain, which do not have a specific authorisation or concession from the Junta," said Fernández, who also assured that they are still processing aid for the affected agricultural and livestock farms in the province, as well as for the town halls and private individuals affected.