The mayor of Beas de Guadix (Granada), Juan Jesús Porcel, yesterday called for urgent help, before there are “deaths to be mourned”, to resolve the stability problems of Cerro del Castillejo, an area that registered landslides early on Friday morning and forced the evacuation of some forty people.
Speaking to EFE, Porcel insisted on the seriousness of the situation and the urgency to intervene and consolidate a hill that has been experiencing landslides and cracks for more than a decade, damage that has increased since last September. “There are landslides every day, every time it rains or the weather changes, the good thing is that until now they have focused on the other part of the hill because rocks have fallen like vans,” he said.
In the last few hours, storms have affected Beas de Guadix, a municipality with around 300 inhabitants, and forced the evacuation of around 40 people from the caves and the street immediately below Cerro del Castillejo, called Perchel. Firefighters activated by the damage to the hill have been in charge of securing the area and marking out the risk area, which has been closed to traffic.
The mayor of Beas explained that those affected spent the night in the homes of relatives or friends and did not want to be relocated to any hotel.
On the other hand, the deputy for Municipal Assistance and Emergencies, Eduardo Martos, who travelled to Beas this morning, explained that during the day yesterday both the emergency technicians and the firefighters will analyse the current situation of the hill. Porcel thanked the help of the Provincial Council, which is preparing a second technical report to find out about the damage to the Cerro del Castillejo and the possible interventions to secure the area, and also of the Regional Government, which has joined in the help.
However, he demanded that the central government should add to this aid with financial means to stabilise the area for emergency reasons. “At the moment they have told me that they are not acting in a preventive manner, it seems that deaths are needed,” lamented the mayor of Beas, who reiterated that he has been looking for solutions for months to prevent a new landslide from causing fatalities and has criticised the lack of support from the Government Subdelegation in Granada. The Beas de Guadix Town Council has carried out various actions on the hill during the last decade without managing to stabilise the area, which keeps some 70 residents who live next to the hill or in houses in the Perchel and Cuevas neighbourhoods in danger.
The storms of the last few hours also caused damage in the province of Granada, especially in Huéscar, where up to 36 litres per square metre were recorded. The virulence of the rain and hail caused the temporary closure of the A-330 highway, at kilometre 32, due to the accumulation of water and weeds, although the road has now been reopened. The 112 emergency service also received ten calls.