Valencia protesters conflict with police as 130,000 take to the streets to name for officers to lose their jobs over lethal floods – branding them ‘murderers’ after alerts had been delayed

Some 130,000 protestors have taken to the streets of Valencia while calling for officials to lose their jobs following a delay in emergency response to last week’s catastrophic floods.

The region was the worst hit by the deadly storm, the most serious in decades, which killed at least 220 people and left towns and cities swamped with mud. 

The demonstration was made up of tens of thousands of angered Spaniards who were protesting to demand the resignation of the regional president in charge of the emergency response to the natural disaster.

Some protesters shouted ‘Murderers! Murderers!’ and some carried placards denouncing Valencia’s regional president Carlos Mazon as well as Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.   

Dramatic images from the scene show riot police and demonstrators facing off on Saturday in a tense atmosphere, with some brutal clashes breaking out. Protesters also marched in other cities across Spain, including Madrid and Alicante.

The rally started in the square in front of city hall before a march to the Valencia regional headquarters, where some protestors carried flares while cops used batons to strike back, reports The Washington Post.

The demonstration was called by around 20 civic groups which are demanding the resignation of Valencian regional leader Carlos Mazon.

Mazon is under immense pressure after his administration failed to send out flood alerts to citizens’ mobile phones until hours after the flooding began on October 29.

Many demonstrators help up homemade signs reading: ‘You killed us!’ while others chanted ‘Mazon resign!’

The huge crowds, which gathered in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento in Valencia’s city centre, also waved banners stating: ‘Where were you then when I needed you so much?’ and ‘Your incompetence costs lives’.

Mazon, of the conservative Popular Party, is being criticised for what people are perceiving as a slow and chaotic response to the deadly natural disaster. 

Spain’s AEMET state forecasting agency issued a red alert at 7.31am but later the same day, regional authorities told Valencians the storm would dissipate in a tweet that was later deleted.

Only at 8.15pm did officials finally send a red alert to residents’ mobiles – about two hours after the storm was at its peak, but this only came as many people returned from work leaving them stranded in their vehicles in the flooded roads.

Thousands of volunteers across hard-hit Valencia were the first boots on the ground as it took several days for officials to mobilise the thousands of police reinforcements and soldiers the regional government asked central authorities to send in.

Mazon has claimed his regional government issued a series of warnings in the days before the fatal flash floods which left at least 219 dead and 93 officially missing.

In total, 36,605 people have been rescued, according to authorities.

Mazon has defended his handling of the crisis, claiming that its magnitude was unforeseeable and that his administration did not receive sufficient warnings from central authorities. 

‘Mazon’s management has been outrageous and he should resign,’ 75-year-old Julian Garcia told AFP.

‘In the hours before, they should have warned people to be on the alert, not to take their children to school, not to take their cars to work,’ he added.

Another protestor argued that it was not enough for the key officials to resign: there was a case to be made that their mismanagement amounted to manslaughter, she said. 

However, Spanish media has reported that Mazon did not join an emergency meeting on the day of the floods until two hours after the disaster had began as he ad been enjoying a long and leisurely lunch that ended at 6pm with a journalist on the day torrential rainfall struck Valencia.

Salome Pradas, the Valencian interior minister, said she did not know about the existence of the red alert system until she was informed about it by an official at 7pm after torrential rainfall had started. 

The provincial president 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.   

Queen Letizia could be seen in footage and images with mud speckled over her face, while one of the bodyguards escorting the royals in Paiporta was hit by an object as he had a cut on his forehead, which caused blood to run down his face.

After being forced to seek protection, the king and queen remained calm and made several efforts to speak to individual residents, while local officials – who the angry crowd had reportedly directed their wrath at – fled.

The king and queen spent an hour trying to calm tempers before leaving themselves, while Sanchez and the head of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazon, quickly left, not before the rear window of the premier’s vehicle was broken.

‘I understand the social anger and of course, I’m here to receive it. This is my political and moral obligation,’ Mazon later said in a post on X, while calling the king’s conduct ‘exemplary’.

Villareal fans today paid tribute to the victims of Valencia’s floods during the team’s LaLiga match against Deportivo Alaves after it emerged that the provincial president lunched until 6pm on the day disaster struck.

Football supporters held up yellow banners with the slogan ‘forca Valencia’ at today’s match in the Estadio de la Ceramica stadium in Villarreal,  while Villarreal and Deportivo Alaves players also paid tribute to the victims by sporting a black ribbon and the same slogan as their supporters on their football kit.

Spain has sent 17,000 troops and police to help the recovery operation.

The government has approved a £8.82billion relief package for families, business and local authorities. Valencian authorities are asking for an additional £25.7bilion in aid.