By AFP - Agence France Presse
Online misinformation exacerbates Spain's flood disaster
Natalia SANGUINO
The misinformation that flooded social media during Spain's catastrophic floods threatened the crucial work of the emergency services and exploited fear, anger, and sadness, according to an AFP investigation.
The European country's worst floods in a generation killed more than 210 people, left dozens missing, and submerged entire towns in mud, mainly in the eastern region of Valencia.
Fake messages multiplied on the Internet when the torrential rains hit Spain on October 29, with one targeting residents living near the Magro and Mijares rivers who saw an evacuation notice supposedly issued by the authorities.
Although the authorities warned residents to stay away from the banks of the rivers, they never asked them to leave their homes, as the fake messages claimed.
The Virtual Operations Support Team, an association of volunteers who monitor social media during crises, told AFP that this kind of misinformation causes chaos.
You run the risk of seeing panicked residents rushing to leave their towns “in a disorderly manner” on the roads destroyed by the floods, “blocking access for emergency vehicles,” it said.
Equally dangerous for public safety was a message claiming to provide an alternative emergency number to call if the official 112 line was down.
- 'Dams destroyed' - Don't you know what's going on?
The amount of misinformation during the first two days of the disaster was so great that the leader of the Valencia region, Carlos Mazon, and the head of the fire department, José Miguel Basset, felt obliged to intervene.
“They talked about evacuations, overflows, dams bursting: none of this was correct, but it significantly disrupted the work of the emergency services,” said Basset.
Popular anger at the authorities for their supposed inaction before and after the devastation led to a search for culprits and another source of misinformation - the government's supposed “destruction of dams.”
This narrative has existed for some time in Spain without ever being proven.
In 2023, the association AEMS - Rios con Vida told AFP that dismantled, disused, or ruined dams could cause or worsen flooding. But Spain has not destroyed any large dams in recent years.
Some internet users have seized on the disaster to claim that the exceptionally powerful Mediterranean storm that triggered it was the work of “climate geoengineering,” dismissing the influence of climate change, which they deny.
However, the science is clear. Neither the so-called “chemtrails” - condensation trails in the sky left by airplanes - nor the HAARP project, which studies the Earth's outer atmosphere, were responsible for the storm.
The rain was 12% heavier and twice as likely compared to the world before global warming, said the World Weather Attribution group of scientists.
“Climate change kills, and we are seeing it,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this week, attacking the ‘irresponsible discourse of the deniers.’
- Parking lot farce
The hostile reception received by King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia, Sanchez, and Mazon in the town of Paiporta last week also generated an explosion of disinformation online.
A photograph of a convoy of police vehicles purporting to show Felipe's escort was a group of Madrid officials arriving in the area.
In another viral image, a firefighter was seen “crying” after leaving an underground parking lot in the town of Aldaia, where hundreds of people were feared to have drowned.
The photographer told AFP that his image captured the firefighter's exhaustion, not sadness.
Spain's national police chief, Francisco Pardo, condemned the “farce” in a televised speech on Tuesday. The government confirmed on Wednesday that rescue teams had found no bodies after all the water had been removed.
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